Fast food and retail workers are always going to be on the bottom of the economic food chain because those jobs require no skill and no education. Those jobs are quickly being replaced by automation. Have you been to a major chain drug store lately? They literally have no one working the register. Customers are expected to use the self serve check out and the same is true for grocery stores. Unless workers can show that they can perform a service or provide a good that a machine can't, they won't be workers.
1
Federal regulators as the saviors of middle class jobs! Right, and
Gulliver was better off tied down by a hoard of Lilliputians. We could bring back blue collar jobs if we had far far fewer Federal regulations (and taxes!). We will only relegate our working class citizens to lower class status forever by obsessively/compulsively writing and enforcing ever more Hammurabian regulations of every aspect of our economic and environmental lives. That causes corporate flight abroad. Oh! And medical centers contribute nothing to our balance of payment problems, especially if we ever more to a government payer system.
Gulliver was better off tied down by a hoard of Lilliputians. We could bring back blue collar jobs if we had far far fewer Federal regulations (and taxes!). We will only relegate our working class citizens to lower class status forever by obsessively/compulsively writing and enforcing ever more Hammurabian regulations of every aspect of our economic and environmental lives. That causes corporate flight abroad. Oh! And medical centers contribute nothing to our balance of payment problems, especially if we ever more to a government payer system.
Why do Porsche, BMW and other auto manufacturers find it so appealing to assemble their cars in the southern U.S.? Obviously, they believe American workers are capable and willing to buy their cars made here. Why does Germany continue to have so much success in the manufacturing sector, leading the world in a trade export balance of products that are second to none.
It is nonsense that a country in the 21st century cannot be a manufacturing powerhouse, and a global leader in the trade of innovative, high technology solution, like precision machine tools, or commercial/military aircraft.
It is nonsense that a country in the 21st century cannot be a manufacturing powerhouse, and a global leader in the trade of innovative, high technology solution, like precision machine tools, or commercial/military aircraft.
1
Manufacturing creates wealth and provides real good paying skilled jobs. Paper shuffling, finance, and taxi driving economy is based not on creation of wealth but on distribution and redistribution of massive amount of federal government DEBT SPENDING. We have created a credit card society almost TOTALLY dependent of federal borrowing and money printing. Americans realize that this kind of economy cannot survive long, and is leading to progressive impoverishing of the average Americans while China is getting wealthier by the day.
1
Why do columnists and TV pundits keep America's better past in the dark? And in past generations, did TV anchor people make millions per year?
We once had a virtuous circle of rising education, training, salaries, benefits—and also profits from consumer demand, a rising middle class, higher paying occupations of college grads paying low tuition from state college subsidies.
Corporations profited even with union bargaining, much higher tax rates, jobs kept here, and govt regulations which now would be bashed as intrusive big govt. The rich were rich, but they didn’t have to hog it all as a god given right.
Now they tell us they have to keep offshoring jobs, so we all can afford to buy basics--on our lower wages caused by offshoring jobs. Our election campaigns can’t address this too directly since they’re sponsored by the co’s doing the offshoring.
Seems many classes of jobs can be outsourced---radiologist, accountants, lawyers, telephone customer service—as we know. Are these people lobbying to keep their jobs here?
What about newspaper columnists? They do very well in pay, benefits and prestige. Can’t newspapers hire educated journalists from Asia for less money? They can research topics on the web, conduct interviews by phone and video anywhere in the world, write up nice columns, and then just press the send button. Yes, the send button!
Our current Times columnists can then find jobs they condescendingly write about.
We once had a virtuous circle of rising education, training, salaries, benefits—and also profits from consumer demand, a rising middle class, higher paying occupations of college grads paying low tuition from state college subsidies.
Corporations profited even with union bargaining, much higher tax rates, jobs kept here, and govt regulations which now would be bashed as intrusive big govt. The rich were rich, but they didn’t have to hog it all as a god given right.
Now they tell us they have to keep offshoring jobs, so we all can afford to buy basics--on our lower wages caused by offshoring jobs. Our election campaigns can’t address this too directly since they’re sponsored by the co’s doing the offshoring.
Seems many classes of jobs can be outsourced---radiologist, accountants, lawyers, telephone customer service—as we know. Are these people lobbying to keep their jobs here?
What about newspaper columnists? They do very well in pay, benefits and prestige. Can’t newspapers hire educated journalists from Asia for less money? They can research topics on the web, conduct interviews by phone and video anywhere in the world, write up nice columns, and then just press the send button. Yes, the send button!
Our current Times columnists can then find jobs they condescendingly write about.
1
Historically manufacturing jobs have provided the best incomes to most Americans, such jobs are at the heart of the labor movement, which for most of the 20th century aligned itself with the Democratic Party. The Democratic Part in turn fed off unionized labor. However in the late 20th the incomes provided by manufacturing jobs, couple with benefits demanded by unions, increased the cost of the products and more importantly the profit margin. For that reason, America has been sending more and more manufacturing jobs overseas where labor is cheap. As a result, America has been become a service economy and while some service sector jobs can provide a good income most don't because many people in this nation cannot afford the higher education required to participate in that economy, or they simply may not have the motivation to pursue higher learning.
That's why politicians talk about manufacturing. Both Democrats and Republicans "talk" about it. Democrats talk about it from the perspective of labor, which was once their base; Republicans talk about it from the perspective of management, profits, and stakeholders. Donald J. Trump is probably one of the first Republicans who has talked about manufacturing from the perspective of labor. That makes him unique among Republicans, not only unique but threatening, because as he speaks to labor, he is providing them with the force of capitalism to overthrows the liberal chains that have bound them to profit. Thank you.
That's why politicians talk about manufacturing. Both Democrats and Republicans "talk" about it. Democrats talk about it from the perspective of labor, which was once their base; Republicans talk about it from the perspective of management, profits, and stakeholders. Donald J. Trump is probably one of the first Republicans who has talked about manufacturing from the perspective of labor. That makes him unique among Republicans, not only unique but threatening, because as he speaks to labor, he is providing them with the force of capitalism to overthrows the liberal chains that have bound them to profit. Thank you.
1
How much of that record value coming out of American factories is really just final assembly of parts made in other countries? Until the government forced them to stop Saucony, to cite just one instance, was sewing together Asian-made shoe soles and uppers and labeling the final product "Made in the USA."
There are armies of obfuscators out there, some of them working for industry, others for government, trying to tell us our decline is either inevitable or non-existent. But we see it every day.
Half the people in this country now live less comfortably, and with less hope for their futures, than people in even the poorest European countries.
But the attitude of the prospering elites (and, yes, that includes you, NY Times) seems to be, "So what. . . those people don't count."
We have always framed the political spectrum as conservative vs. liberal. It's time to start thinking of it as elite vs. non-elite.
There are armies of obfuscators out there, some of them working for industry, others for government, trying to tell us our decline is either inevitable or non-existent. But we see it every day.
Half the people in this country now live less comfortably, and with less hope for their futures, than people in even the poorest European countries.
But the attitude of the prospering elites (and, yes, that includes you, NY Times) seems to be, "So what. . . those people don't count."
We have always framed the political spectrum as conservative vs. liberal. It's time to start thinking of it as elite vs. non-elite.
1
"But the value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after adjusting for inflation. The present moment, in other words, is the most productive in the nation’s history."
This is the crux of the matter. We have a strong manufacturing sector. But it's automated so it just doesn't need many workers. The workers it does need must be highly educated. Why would any company hire people to do the work that machines do better? Employees are usually a company's greatest cost, one the so-called "job creators" do their best to avoid. You can't revive John Henry--he's dead and gone.
This is the crux of the matter. We have a strong manufacturing sector. But it's automated so it just doesn't need many workers. The workers it does need must be highly educated. Why would any company hire people to do the work that machines do better? Employees are usually a company's greatest cost, one the so-called "job creators" do their best to avoid. You can't revive John Henry--he's dead and gone.
1
Can a GM employee in Mexico afford to buy a car & can the Apple employee from Foxconn make enough money to purchase the product?
2
Mr. Appelbaum is half right. It is unlikely that massive manufacturing will be a big component of America’s future. What he ignores is the impact of advanced technology that will transform our whole concept of manufacturing. Advanced computation (even Artificial Intelligence) totally new materials and assembly methods will revolutionize the creation of “things”. A wide variety of customized, rapidly (even automatically) reconfiguring, advanced manufacturing operations may have just as much net impact on economic growth as the old behemoths of America’s past.
We can’t, however, ignore significant problems inhibiting development of advanced technology and its potential benefits for society. The nature of work (if not the number of jobs) is drastically changing. There is no escaping the fact that the modern worker must acquire a very advanced set of skills and also be prepared for a dynamically changing work environment. The STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) training effort in America needs to be significantly enhanced in order to give American workers the tools to compete on the digital frontier. In addition, the public support of R&D in relation to GDP is severely slipping despite the warnings of a number of prominent advisory groups. There is good reason to believe that advanced technology will be an overall benefit to our society and transform enterprises like “manufacturing” but the future needs us to make many important commitments in order to assure this.
We can’t, however, ignore significant problems inhibiting development of advanced technology and its potential benefits for society. The nature of work (if not the number of jobs) is drastically changing. There is no escaping the fact that the modern worker must acquire a very advanced set of skills and also be prepared for a dynamically changing work environment. The STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) training effort in America needs to be significantly enhanced in order to give American workers the tools to compete on the digital frontier. In addition, the public support of R&D in relation to GDP is severely slipping despite the warnings of a number of prominent advisory groups. There is good reason to believe that advanced technology will be an overall benefit to our society and transform enterprises like “manufacturing” but the future needs us to make many important commitments in order to assure this.
"From an economic perspective, however, there can be no revival of American manufacturing, because there has been no collapse. Because of automation, there are far fewer jobs in factories." This is the reality. Automation will not only continue but accelerate, eliminating good paying middle class jobs with the bulk of displaced workers going to lower paying service jobs. What's needed is to lift the bottom through, for example, higher minimum wages and to supplement lower incomes through programs such as low cost health insurance. These programs will be paid for through taxes on the windfall profits made by those benefiting from the automation. Our socioeconomic model is changing, we need to change our policies to match. By the way, the political obsession with bringing back manufacturing jobs is simply grubbing for votes from people who refuse to accept that those jobs are gone forever.
Mr. Appelbaum -
I live far from the declining centers of manufacturing in this country and none of my forebears worked in union-based industries. Yet I read articles like this with great fascination as I long to educate myself on those long-standing issues that have quite rightly risen to the forefront of our plethora of national discussion. I find these letters to you remarkably well thought out and merit response on your part. I would love to hear more of the debate.
I live far from the declining centers of manufacturing in this country and none of my forebears worked in union-based industries. Yet I read articles like this with great fascination as I long to educate myself on those long-standing issues that have quite rightly risen to the forefront of our plethora of national discussion. I find these letters to you remarkably well thought out and merit response on your part. I would love to hear more of the debate.
1
Interesting article, and I agree that the politicians have it all wrong: trying to revive semiskilled industrial manufacturing jobs of the last century is a waste of time. We are in a postindustrial economy that will see a new manufacturing boom in the next 10 years. Manufacturing jobs that required routine cognitive and routine manual skills are disappearing. What will replace them are jobs that require design thinking, creativity, 3-D modeling, rapid prototyping, and production skills.
There is a recent article on Advanced Manufacturing worth reading. Here is the link:
http://dsg.files.app.content.prod.s3.amazonaws.com/gereports/wp-content/...
There is a recent article on Advanced Manufacturing worth reading. Here is the link:
http://dsg.files.app.content.prod.s3.amazonaws.com/gereports/wp-content/...
So glad someone has asked this question. In the South we hear about how Mexico, Vietnam, Sri Lanka (you fill in the blank) stole The region's textile jobs. Truth is, the South 'stole' those jobs from New England, which stole them from England. The South was able to attract the textile industry because employers could pay lower wages; there were no pesky unions to advocate for improved wages and working conditions. What goes around . . .
1
B. Appelbaum did not present a fair picture of Clinton; to make his point, "When it came time to describe [economic agenda] plans, she chose a factory outside Detroit..." If he was fair, he could have included the West Virginia coal miner encounter.
"During a March 13 CNN Town Hall, Journalist Roland Martin asked, in effect, why should poor white people vote for her.
In her response, Clinton did say that she would be putting coal companies out of business, as a result of moving toward renewable energy sources. But she followed that by saying she wanted to create new economic opportunities for current coal workers, possibly spurred by clean energy development." (Politifact). Donald Trump is no Hillary Clinton. The slant by using the Detroit example is the kind of thing that drives Krugman nuts. Trump supporters just might have a future if Clinton is elected.
"During a March 13 CNN Town Hall, Journalist Roland Martin asked, in effect, why should poor white people vote for her.
In her response, Clinton did say that she would be putting coal companies out of business, as a result of moving toward renewable energy sources. But she followed that by saying she wanted to create new economic opportunities for current coal workers, possibly spurred by clean energy development." (Politifact). Donald Trump is no Hillary Clinton. The slant by using the Detroit example is the kind of thing that drives Krugman nuts. Trump supporters just might have a future if Clinton is elected.
If automation were responsible for the loss of good paying jobs for working class people we would still see 'Made in the USA' labels on everything but that is clearly not the case. Instead most products in clothing, kitchen and bath, appliance stores, etc., are made overseas, typically in China. One wonders why the NYT, so many prominent economists and others ignore this and insist that it is 'automation'. It is in fact difficult to find 'Made in the USA' products these days.
Service the service economy? The one that has resulted in median incomes being as low as what people had a couple of decades ago? It really is a class war that we are in the midst of, and almost everyone is unaware of who is on what side, instead people are fighting for the pieces of cake that fall from the table of the 1%.
Service the service economy? The one that has resulted in median incomes being as low as what people had a couple of decades ago? It really is a class war that we are in the midst of, and almost everyone is unaware of who is on what side, instead people are fighting for the pieces of cake that fall from the table of the 1%.
1
Donald is focused on only what he knows - building buildings. Look at the list of jobs he includes in his speeches - steelworkers, electricians, plumbers, Sheetrockers, concrete guys and gals - all jobs related to building construction. As the article notes, he is focused on the past, not on the current or future. We need a President with a future vision, not a reactionary.
Both candidates are promising hardhat types of jobs. He with manufacturing which is magically to return as we put the genie of globalism back in the bottle and erect trade barriers--walls within walls, a proper metaphor for a real-estate mogul,--she with infrastructure jobs, the latter a dram unless Congress suddenly rolls over after twenty-years of mainly Republican obstructionism on any money for anything except wars.
Meantime the NYT helps to distract from any substantive discussion of comparative policies by focusing on personality, notably his. Or lack of. This week that allowed her leaked speeches with statements reassuring Wall Street she'd let it regulate itself or that trade barriers should be non-existent or that Simpson-Bowles with its cuts in Social Security and Medicare would be her policy--all that got no play at all. Why?
Meantime the NYT helps to distract from any substantive discussion of comparative policies by focusing on personality, notably his. Or lack of. This week that allowed her leaked speeches with statements reassuring Wall Street she'd let it regulate itself or that trade barriers should be non-existent or that Simpson-Bowles with its cuts in Social Security and Medicare would be her policy--all that got no play at all. Why?
1
We are a service sector economy now, for a number of reasons, not least of which is automation. But a more balanced explanation would also discuss the long term impact of tax laws that benefit the very wealthy and disproportionately disadvantage the middle and lower classes. And recent decades of relatively nonselective immigration, which saddles the US with low educated and low skilled workers. As well as a fractured for-profit train wreck of a healthcare system that causes everyone to have to dedicate substantial personal resources of time and money to work hard to manage what should be a basic service operating in the background of everyone's life, like in Europe. And education, whose profound value has been deemphasized by politicians and shrugged off by the populace leaving us unprepared to remain in a position of worldwide dominance. And a financial industry that instead of being strongly regulated like the utility it really is, operates more like a national casino. Add for-profit warmongering, an overly militarized policing structure and a for-profit prison system and then we can have a balanced discussion, thank you.
"From an economic perspective, however, there can be no revival of American manufacturing, because there has been no collapse. Because of automation, there are far fewer jobs in factories. But the value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after adjusting for inflation. The present moment, in other words, is the most productive in the nation’s history."
So the manufacturing system is just fine. Or better, ours is less and less a manu-facturing system. Efficiency in the generation of profits has simply eliminated the need for well paid manual workers--and will continue to do so.
If you can't stand the greed, just stay out of the capitalist kitchen--where the bonuses are baked, where the books are cooked, and where the tax-and trade-laws are deep fried to the delectation and delight of corporate employers.
So the manufacturing system is just fine. Or better, ours is less and less a manu-facturing system. Efficiency in the generation of profits has simply eliminated the need for well paid manual workers--and will continue to do so.
If you can't stand the greed, just stay out of the capitalist kitchen--where the bonuses are baked, where the books are cooked, and where the tax-and trade-laws are deep fried to the delectation and delight of corporate employers.
1
Most of the problem was created by the Clinton administration. Not only
NAFTA was a bad idea, but letting China become a member of the WTO was
detrimental to the economy of this Nation. To better understand it, watch the documentary "Death by China".
NAFTA was a bad idea, but letting China become a member of the WTO was
detrimental to the economy of this Nation. To better understand it, watch the documentary "Death by China".
Where are we supposed to get the money to pay decent wages for all those service jobs? Well, if I understand Mr. Appelbaum correctly, we are still exporting enough manufactured goods to keep us a respectably rich country (" the value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016.").
So if I get this straight, U.S. manufacturers are taking in pretty much the same amount of money they did back in the heyday of the factory worker. But since they don't have to pay U.S. workers' salaries, they are pocketing all that money they save through automation and offfshoring.
The solution seems simple. Claw back from the manufacturers enough funds to subsidize the service workers' salaries. All this requires is political guts.
So if I get this straight, U.S. manufacturers are taking in pretty much the same amount of money they did back in the heyday of the factory worker. But since they don't have to pay U.S. workers' salaries, they are pocketing all that money they save through automation and offfshoring.
The solution seems simple. Claw back from the manufacturers enough funds to subsidize the service workers' salaries. All this requires is political guts.
It's interesting the conflicted attitudes we have about manufacturing. Back when manufacturing was dominant, we complained about the soulless jobs of making and selling widgets. Now that many of those jobs have departed, we bemoan the loss of craft, design skill, and (in hindsight) dignified labor. Perhaps the reality is that both industrial and service work in modern corporations is boring, and because our horizons are so narrow, as our standard of living has eroded, our quality of life has fallen even further.
Actually this one started with Alexander Hamilton the non-musical....
The presence of manufacturing signifies a society in control, robust with creativity. A plethora of service jobs signifies...well.. the opposite.
"Why Are Politicians So Obsessed With Manufacturing?"
Because those lost manufacturing jobs used to pay upwards of $20/hour, and the service jobs now available pay under the poverty level.
Because those lost manufacturing jobs used to pay upwards of $20/hour, and the service jobs now available pay under the poverty level.
What a great piece! For me this quote spells it out,
"This myopic focus on factory jobs distracts from another, simpler way to help working Americans: Improve the conditions of the work they actually do. Fast-food servers scrape by on minimum wage; contract workers are denied benefits; child-care providers have no paid leave to spend with their own children."
Manufacturing is not coming back. I always feel sorry for the miners, steelworkers, etc who are pictured at Trump rallies. I see them standing waiting for their jobs to return on February 1,2017. We are wasting our money, instead of trying to bring back factories spend the money on education, instead of import taxes raise the minimum wage, fix the ACA so we all can have really affordable health care. Lets move forward, not back to the days of polluting steel mills or dirty coal.
"This myopic focus on factory jobs distracts from another, simpler way to help working Americans: Improve the conditions of the work they actually do. Fast-food servers scrape by on minimum wage; contract workers are denied benefits; child-care providers have no paid leave to spend with their own children."
Manufacturing is not coming back. I always feel sorry for the miners, steelworkers, etc who are pictured at Trump rallies. I see them standing waiting for their jobs to return on February 1,2017. We are wasting our money, instead of trying to bring back factories spend the money on education, instead of import taxes raise the minimum wage, fix the ACA so we all can have really affordable health care. Lets move forward, not back to the days of polluting steel mills or dirty coal.
1
Many people have a deep need to use their hands to create an object. The creation of an abstraction by the mind does not satisfy that need. This is not just a question of training, but the fundamental identification of the self in the productive activity of the body. Asking every worker to sacrifice that identification completes the alienation of the worker from the work. It may be that the societal costs of that alienation exceed the costs of supporting manufacturing. That said, the proper valuation of what has been considered women's work, child and elder care, education, relationship building, would raise the status of that work sufficiently to satisfy not only the economic bu also the emotional needs of more workers. As we proceed into the Age of Mechanical Cognition, work must focus on what is most essentially human which is caring for each other.
The main reason is the multiplier effect. According to the current edition, of IndustryWeek,
"Earlier projections based on Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) annual input-output tables have calculated that a dollar's worth of final demand for manufacturers generates $1.48 in other services and production. This is higher than any other sector. The retail and wholesale trade sectors have much lower multipliers, generating 54 cents and 58 cents respectively in other additional inputs for every dollar of economic activity they generate."
"Earlier projections based on Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) annual input-output tables have calculated that a dollar's worth of final demand for manufacturers generates $1.48 in other services and production. This is higher than any other sector. The retail and wholesale trade sectors have much lower multipliers, generating 54 cents and 58 cents respectively in other additional inputs for every dollar of economic activity they generate."
2
Binyamin, U.S. manufacturing jobs have been shrinking for a very long time.
We needed a war, that is WW2 to start a workingman's industrial revolution at the time of the war and afterwards.
But that didn't last long.
Did it ?
Why ?
Because the patriotism that started in 1942 and before America directly entered the war evaporated not too long after all the soldiers came home as our industry leaders found out after a decade or two that it's better to mass produce everything in less prosperous countries paying a nickel and dime per hour to foreign workers than paying a much higher rates per hour to the Americans.
So, it's no wonder that our politicians are high on promises to revive jobs in America but pretty low on keeping their promises.
Trump will be no exception.
He'll never revive coal or steel industries in Pittsburgh or elsewhere in America as a President because he'll do what he's doing right now, that is getting each and every bit of his merchandises made in China and Bangladesh.
Hillary Clinton visited some factories in America who make much better ties here in America but Trump won't give them any orders because it'll cost him lot more than getting shipped here from China.
So, my question is, do we really need business people like Trump in America?
No way.
We needed a war, that is WW2 to start a workingman's industrial revolution at the time of the war and afterwards.
But that didn't last long.
Did it ?
Why ?
Because the patriotism that started in 1942 and before America directly entered the war evaporated not too long after all the soldiers came home as our industry leaders found out after a decade or two that it's better to mass produce everything in less prosperous countries paying a nickel and dime per hour to foreign workers than paying a much higher rates per hour to the Americans.
So, it's no wonder that our politicians are high on promises to revive jobs in America but pretty low on keeping their promises.
Trump will be no exception.
He'll never revive coal or steel industries in Pittsburgh or elsewhere in America as a President because he'll do what he's doing right now, that is getting each and every bit of his merchandises made in China and Bangladesh.
Hillary Clinton visited some factories in America who make much better ties here in America but Trump won't give them any orders because it'll cost him lot more than getting shipped here from China.
So, my question is, do we really need business people like Trump in America?
No way.
The problem with this article is that it assumes that regulators can "improve conditions in the service sector". It suggests no policies nor provides any reason to say that they will be effective. Sure, if businesses are employing workers in highly profitable ventures and labour market competition is poor, then unions and legislation and increase wages (in theory). But if these unusual conditions do not hold, then you will likely see higher unemployment as certain workers are priced-out of the labour market.
As for the main idea, the author misses the point. People care (or should I say, are "obsessed with") manufacturing jobs because such jobs pay well and suit a whole lot of people - or did so in the recent past. It is true that many of these workers are men. People are not equal in strength or dexterity and neither are they in verbal and people skills. Have you ever heard a guy or girl say: "I like to work with my hands", "I take pride in making something", "I'm good at fixing stuff"? What do you think that means? Do you think that such a person would make a good barista or customer service rep or professor of rheumatology?
It is a very tough issue and I haven't seen any plausible plans for a good solution. But at least some of us understand that there is a real problem. Others get published in the The New York Times.
As for the main idea, the author misses the point. People care (or should I say, are "obsessed with") manufacturing jobs because such jobs pay well and suit a whole lot of people - or did so in the recent past. It is true that many of these workers are men. People are not equal in strength or dexterity and neither are they in verbal and people skills. Have you ever heard a guy or girl say: "I like to work with my hands", "I take pride in making something", "I'm good at fixing stuff"? What do you think that means? Do you think that such a person would make a good barista or customer service rep or professor of rheumatology?
It is a very tough issue and I haven't seen any plausible plans for a good solution. But at least some of us understand that there is a real problem. Others get published in the The New York Times.
About time someone wrote this. According to BLS data, real manufacturing output is at an all-time high. But high output no longer needs high employment. Manufacturing jobs are not coming back, and it is not because they have departed for the far east. Workers have more to fear from silicon valley than the do from the TPP. And it is not just manufacturing jobs that are lost to technology. Driverless cars and image analysis software will displace taxi and Uber drivers and radiologists, respectively. More is certain to come. What politician has a plan for this?
I have my doubts that Mr. Applebaum has worked in either sector, or he would quickly understand the difference between service jobs and manufacturing jobs. The only reason that manufacturing jobs went away is because the owners of factories decided they would, and they did it with the blessing of government and often with significant tax incentives. If it became more cost effective to manufacture here, they could and would bring them back. People like Mr. Applebaum talk about their disappearance as if it were the result of some cosmic irreversible event, like an asteroid collision that killed manufacturing jobs, rather than a calculated business decision. Business decisions, like all human activity, can be changed, altered or reversed.
Leave it to the NYT to slam manufacturing.
After all, why not? Manufacturing is another topic where one can scream "You'd didn't build that! The people who educated you, built the roads, grew your food, sold you your food, made the pots and pans you cooked it in, made your toilet paper, delivered your toilet paper to the store, checked out your toilet paper at the cash register, built that!
Oh Services! Yes! The kinds of jobs that get outsourced to other countries! The jobs where if they don't get outsourced pay minimum wage!
Oh wait! Aren't they the kinds of jobs done by those who Hillary calls "Basement Dwellers"?
Granted, we have accountants, doctors, barbers, and others in some better paying service jobs.
And manufacturing jobs are usually done by those uneducated blue collar workers. You know, those BASKETS OF DEPLORABLES! No wonder the hoity-toity NYT turns up its nose at people who earn an honest day's work by getting their hands dirty.
After all, why not? Manufacturing is another topic where one can scream "You'd didn't build that! The people who educated you, built the roads, grew your food, sold you your food, made the pots and pans you cooked it in, made your toilet paper, delivered your toilet paper to the store, checked out your toilet paper at the cash register, built that!
Oh Services! Yes! The kinds of jobs that get outsourced to other countries! The jobs where if they don't get outsourced pay minimum wage!
Oh wait! Aren't they the kinds of jobs done by those who Hillary calls "Basement Dwellers"?
Granted, we have accountants, doctors, barbers, and others in some better paying service jobs.
And manufacturing jobs are usually done by those uneducated blue collar workers. You know, those BASKETS OF DEPLORABLES! No wonder the hoity-toity NYT turns up its nose at people who earn an honest day's work by getting their hands dirty.
The author kind of answered his own questions about why manufacturing jobs are so important.
This is not a normal or sustainable situation:
"The city’s jobs, however, increasingly are divided between a prospering college-educated elite of lawyers and doctors and bankers and a struggling mass of fast-food workers and security guards and nannies."
Manufacturing jobs are or were precisely the jobs in the middle of the spectrum. And maybe the old factory were a lot of things were done by hand is gone. But we've had an explosion of consumer goods that still need to be made. Not everything can be done by the robots and furthermore robots themselves need to be serviced and maintained. There is still need for someone who can work with their hands but is also computer literate. Unfortunately, a lot of these jobs went to other countries and not all of them with very cheap labor. The US government needs to have active policies to attract manufacturing jobs to this country...
This is not a normal or sustainable situation:
"The city’s jobs, however, increasingly are divided between a prospering college-educated elite of lawyers and doctors and bankers and a struggling mass of fast-food workers and security guards and nannies."
Manufacturing jobs are or were precisely the jobs in the middle of the spectrum. And maybe the old factory were a lot of things were done by hand is gone. But we've had an explosion of consumer goods that still need to be made. Not everything can be done by the robots and furthermore robots themselves need to be serviced and maintained. There is still need for someone who can work with their hands but is also computer literate. Unfortunately, a lot of these jobs went to other countries and not all of them with very cheap labor. The US government needs to have active policies to attract manufacturing jobs to this country...
I remember sitting in Econ101 in my freshman year in college in 1981, and hearing over and Over and OVER how manufacturing jobs would be drying up by the time we were a third of the way into our careers.
So how is it that we're even still discussing this issue? How is it that so many in "real America" are still demanding jobs that will vanish permanently within their lifetimes? How is that regional and state leadership has so utterly, thoroughly, and criminally failed to prepare their constituencies for this *global* trend???
So how is it that we're even still discussing this issue? How is it that so many in "real America" are still demanding jobs that will vanish permanently within their lifetimes? How is that regional and state leadership has so utterly, thoroughly, and criminally failed to prepare their constituencies for this *global* trend???
Automation? Don't step in that as an explanation, as if automation were responsible for the loss of good paying jobs for working class people we would still see 'Made in the USA' labels on everything but that is clearly not the case. Instead most products in clothing, kitchen and bath, appliance stores, etc., are made overseas, typically in China. One wonders why the NYT, so many prominent economists and others ignore this and insist that it is 'automation'. It is in fact difficult to find 'Made in the USA' products these days, so 'automation is evidently some kind of code word for exporting jobs overseas.
Service the service economy? The one that has resulted in median incomes being as low as what people had a couple of decades ago? It really is a class war that we are in the midst of, and almost everyone is unaware of who is on what side, instead people are fighting for the pieces of cake that fall from the table of the 1%.
Service the service economy? The one that has resulted in median incomes being as low as what people had a couple of decades ago? It really is a class war that we are in the midst of, and almost everyone is unaware of who is on what side, instead people are fighting for the pieces of cake that fall from the table of the 1%.
1
You can also thank WalMart for the decline of American-made goods. There are plenty of beautiful, well-made American-produced goods and products. The vast majority of American choose not to purchase them due to the higher costs. You can't harp on NAFTA and free trade, when most refuse to support American-made goods based on price. We can't have it both ways.
Uh, they're 'obsessed with manufacturing' because American jobs and livelihoods were wholly sold out to the crony globalist cabal in the '90s via NAFTA and other 'free trade' agreements. This totally devastated American towns and their now-unemployed blue-collar residents. The cult of open borders has brought America nothing but loaded syringes of cheap Mexican heroin in the place of good manufacturing jobs (and politicians are finally wising up).
3
Thanks, a great article. I remember when I dropped out of college in 1968. My friend and I went up to the industrial park on the side of the Long Island Expressway. Every factory there had banners draped on their exterior walls, "Help Wanted". We went in and got hired that day. We made commercial bathroom partitions and similar products. The factory worked on a production quota so you had to make so many pieces per hour whatever your job was {I was in packing) and if you went over your quota, you could earn up to 50% above your base salary. Everyone there worked flat out as fast as they could to get that 50% "bonus". Many of the workers there were black men from the city who worked two full time jobs in different factories, driving to a different factory after their first eight hour shift. At break time, some of them would sleep in the large flat cartons intended for the finished products. I could live on the money I made there. I wonder if the industrial park is still there and what is produced there. I was at the mall today, and most of the retail stores had signs in their windows "Help Wanted".
2
You can' t sustain the military without a manufacturing base and a population that is comfortable with machines and how to fix them. Gen. Patton said that one of the keys to his army's success was that when a tank or truck broke down the average G.I.s could fix them and keep rolling.
Manufacturing is the key component of the military-industrial complex, & politicians love the military which lavishes lucrative production orders on their constituent's factories. Politicians are therefore selected for their militarism, & wars let politicians generate an urgent need for themselves. The U.S.A. need to promote factories & factory workers because without them who would make our military hardware, ammunitions, bombers & bullets, and without military production what on earth would we spend half our tax revenue on? Makes perfect sense.
Back in the 1960s weather forecasters thought tha computer models would take over their jobs. After a serious look at the models and the mathematical problems of nonlinear mathematics we found out that better trained forecasters would help solve the problems we faced. We provided the training and the forecasters responded with increased accuracy and precision. The resulting philosophy was let the computers do what they do best and the people do what the do best.
A hint: image processing systems have a very tough job identifying low hanging wires over a roadway.
A hint: image processing systems have a very tough job identifying low hanging wires over a roadway.
1
The basic misperception of this article is that all jobs build the economy. But only export jobs really build the economy - export jobs bring in cash from outside that is used to build the economy. And some service jobs are export jobs - they are sold to those outside, and so also bring in cash. But most service jobs cited here - caregivers, retail workers, customer service sold to people inside the economy - these just move money from one person to another. Efficiencies and such in these areas do boost local wealth, but only marginally - not like the full multipliers that come from a sale to someone outside. Services sold to each other don't create new money in the system. This is what export jobs do, and what manufacturing does well (as well as exported services such as finance and data services.
2
I worked in a plastics factory packing ice cream containers for minimum wage briefly in the early 1970's when I was young, living in rural Massachusetts, and there were very few jobs. It was mind numbing work with no employee benefits. Now, when I hear the nostalgic longing for the days of manufacturing that is where my mind turns - to those long nights in mind numbing servitude for a pittance. I was lucky. I got out. Today, I'm sure there's a machine that does the job I used to do and, if so, that's probably a good thing.
As for pride in building something fine with your own hands, I would argue that it is a natural desire among the curious no matter what their gender to understand how things work and to be able to create.
What we all need is the dignity of a real living wage no matter what kind of work we have.
As for pride in building something fine with your own hands, I would argue that it is a natural desire among the curious no matter what their gender to understand how things work and to be able to create.
What we all need is the dignity of a real living wage no matter what kind of work we have.
1
"Why Are Politicians So Obsessed With Manufacturing?"
Why? Because working on a production line is the main kind of work — and not many other things — that lots of people can do. And plenty of those people don't have jobs now because so many of our manufacturing jobs have moved overseas.
I'm not optimistic for this trend to change, because globalization causes jobs to move overseas for the cheaper labor, and that's possible thanks to the lower cost of living elsewhere.
The only thing that might save it is good old American ingenuity. But even there I'm pessimistic, since lots of people overseas are showing they're just as ingenious as we are, given the opportunity.
Why? Because working on a production line is the main kind of work — and not many other things — that lots of people can do. And plenty of those people don't have jobs now because so many of our manufacturing jobs have moved overseas.
I'm not optimistic for this trend to change, because globalization causes jobs to move overseas for the cheaper labor, and that's possible thanks to the lower cost of living elsewhere.
The only thing that might save it is good old American ingenuity. But even there I'm pessimistic, since lots of people overseas are showing they're just as ingenious as we are, given the opportunity.
1
Remember when everybody wanted a foreign car because they said American cars were too expensive because our workers were paid too much and not well made. So the big 3 left. Cars are produced everywhere these days all around the world and of course it snowballed effecting businesses everywhere, And they are just as expensive as ever but cheaper to build.
If there is no manufacturing then whom will the service industry serve?
1
It seems that the vast majority of commenters have never been inside a factory. The core argument of the article is not that service jobs are desirable. The core argument is that it no longer takes many people to make stuff. Yes, some jobs have been offshored, but even if we offshored nothing, manufacturing jobs would have declined precipitously in the last few decades. What used to take thousands of people to do now takes only a few people. I've toured a giant sheet metal factory, that makes much of the metal for car bodies built in Detroit; the sum total of people in that factory was about ten and the total number not sitting in front a computer screen was two. So manufacturing is declining as a share of the economy, because stuff is cheaper, and it requires fewer people. The question for the future is, what is everyone now going to do? We've weathered technological changes before - you won't find many candlemakers or ditch-diggers or hand-weavers anymore, and the fraction of the population who are farmers has crashed, and somehow everyone still found employment eventually - but the changes that have happened recently and will happen in the future are much bigger. What does an economy look like, when it takes almost no people to make stuff and grow food for the whole population? That's a huge question and one very justly raised by Mr. Applebaum. People should check their prejudices and listen to what he is actually saying.
5
What boils down to is one word i.e. profitability. If a sector or sectors that generate less profitability (investment return) then that they will dwindle in hiring and growth until away into nothing. Steel sector is a typical example. And many industrial sectors may have to bite the bullet until profitability aggrandizement will be forlorn of hope.
By comparison, workers in manufacturing produce commodity for buyers via circulation and those in service sectors provide services to buyers who directly get benefits without circulation. The former can easily be displaced by automation as a displacer and the latter can be displaced likewise but not as easily as in the former case, capital needs to advance a lot more funds to purchase advanced automation, for an example with the help of A.I., causing temporary postponement of wide-spread displacement in the service sectors.
The serious effect of automation on society is that less human labor will be needed so that less value created, consequently commodity and services become so much depreciated that commodity/money/credit/capital(both real and fictitious) will be devalued. The profitability will fall as new capital investment fails to sustain profitability at its current level. Society will be in turmoil – investment, growth and employment all stop.
The only way out is to let the state be the vicarious authority that takes over the means of production with the sole purpose of serving the people and their needs.
By comparison, workers in manufacturing produce commodity for buyers via circulation and those in service sectors provide services to buyers who directly get benefits without circulation. The former can easily be displaced by automation as a displacer and the latter can be displaced likewise but not as easily as in the former case, capital needs to advance a lot more funds to purchase advanced automation, for an example with the help of A.I., causing temporary postponement of wide-spread displacement in the service sectors.
The serious effect of automation on society is that less human labor will be needed so that less value created, consequently commodity and services become so much depreciated that commodity/money/credit/capital(both real and fictitious) will be devalued. The profitability will fall as new capital investment fails to sustain profitability at its current level. Society will be in turmoil – investment, growth and employment all stop.
The only way out is to let the state be the vicarious authority that takes over the means of production with the sole purpose of serving the people and their needs.
Manufacturing jobs left when we decided foreign cars are better. Now the autoworker gets a fraction of what they used to make. The unions are gone and of course it snowballed to everything from computers to clothes.
Manufacturing jobs left when we decided price was more important than pedigree. That how much it costs is more important than how it was made - and it who it supports. We can't complain about the loss of American jobs when we refuse to pay more for American-made goods. Walmart and the like are also responsible for that. Our unending search for a "good deal" prevent us from appreciating and paying more for American goods.
Our high schools and colleges should also train students for jobs that are actually needed. I am amazed at how many recent college graduates are out of work or under employed. Schools need to do a better job to prepare students for needed employment opportunities. PAUL FEINER, Greenburgh, NY
What a fine article, factual and based on reality. Experts will continue to debate the relative contribution of automation and outsourcing to loss of jobs in manufacturing. But it is inarguable that jobs in coal mining were at their peak in the early 1920s. Changes in fueling of ships and trains were important. Much later, a switch to open-cast mining of anthracite represented a switch to greater automation and actually made Wyoming the king of coal in 1986. By that time, the Rust Belt was long established.
2
Too little too late
Manufacturing jobs were union jobs. They paid a living, middle class wage to millions of people without a college degree. There's nothing special about manufacturing jobs that would make them pay more than service sector jobs if it wasn't for the unions. Unions were the result of horrific working and pay conditions in the nineteenth century--and a lot of blood spilled. If service sector jobs were primarily unionized, we wouldn't be wishing for those unionized manufacturing jobs of the past.
1
""a good wage, good benefits, and a secure retirement,” she said. But no one is basing an entire presidential campaign around ideas like this."
Well, not now, they're not. But one did. Bernie Sanders.
Or, if you're willing to count her, one still is: Jill Stein.
Well, not now, they're not. But one did. Bernie Sanders.
Or, if you're willing to count her, one still is: Jill Stein.
Many readers seem so wedded to the manufacturing of products that they're unable to think critically or originally. We are creating products we don't need simply to sustain the enrichment of investors. In the process we are destroying our planet. Have none of the commenters here ever seen the animated video, The Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard? Brilliant, entertaining, though-provoking, and only 22 minutes long. Available on Youtube. Mr. Applebaum is absolutely onto something that needs to be explored. In the near future we will need more and more caregivers to care for our aging population. There is a growing appreciation in the long-term care industry that these workers must be paid a living wage, not the pittance they're now paid. Childcare workers, hospital aides, teachers, retail clerks, janitorial workers, customer service representatives, the list of service providers we need goes on. We don't need more more toys, more junk. We need more service workers across a variety of industries, and they need to be paid a living wage. Where do we get the money for this? A vastly different tax system and a vastly reduced military budget are two things that come to mind. As long as the Paul Krugmans of the world are pontificating, nothing will change. We need a great deal more creative, radical thinking on what the economy of the future might look like. Mr. Appelbaum's essay is a start.
2
All of what is described in this article is the logical result of unfettered capitalism, aided and abetted by a compliant Congress, distracted Administrations, greedy CEOs, passive Board oversight, and the relentless pressure of investors for ever higher profits.
As Americans, we seem content in our insular worldview and in the arrogance of exceptionalism to ever conclude that future of the backbone of our nation for generations -- skilled labor -- is an endangered species we can't afford to lose.
As Americans, we seem content in our insular worldview and in the arrogance of exceptionalism to ever conclude that future of the backbone of our nation for generations -- skilled labor -- is an endangered species we can't afford to lose.
Strength in international trade and balance of current
account arises from strong manufacturing base.
Germany, China and Japan have trade surpluses
due to their manufacturing prowess and lend to service
based deficit countries like USA and U.K. Germany has
the highest trade surplus, at 8% GDP, of any country. Its
wage rates are even higher than ours, use modern
technology, yet they can competitively sell products
worldwide. They could bailout Greece, Spain, Ireland
and lend to USA as well. The big difference is the
mindset of CEOs in America who look for cost reduction
at places with subsistence wages. By increasing profit,
demanded by the wall street every quarter, they earn huge bonuses, their compensation amounting to 340 times
of low level workers. It is not automation, Japan uses
more robots, high wages in USA and U.K. that have
contributed to hollowing out manufacturing. It is greedy
wall street and self interested CEOs.
account arises from strong manufacturing base.
Germany, China and Japan have trade surpluses
due to their manufacturing prowess and lend to service
based deficit countries like USA and U.K. Germany has
the highest trade surplus, at 8% GDP, of any country. Its
wage rates are even higher than ours, use modern
technology, yet they can competitively sell products
worldwide. They could bailout Greece, Spain, Ireland
and lend to USA as well. The big difference is the
mindset of CEOs in America who look for cost reduction
at places with subsistence wages. By increasing profit,
demanded by the wall street every quarter, they earn huge bonuses, their compensation amounting to 340 times
of low level workers. It is not automation, Japan uses
more robots, high wages in USA and U.K. that have
contributed to hollowing out manufacturing. It is greedy
wall street and self interested CEOs.
Those who argue that somehow manufacturing jobs give the workers more satisfaction probably never worked in a factory. I did--several, during different summers during college--and I was incredibly glad not to have to do so longer. Most of them were mind-numbing confirmations of Durkheim's claim that such jobs lead to anomie, the alienation of working in windowless rooms endlessly putting this on that (1100 times a day for one job I had, 900 in another). Most factory jobs weren't making some large completed product, either. Having said that, it is extremely dangerous to outsource too much physical manufacturing. Imagine the dangers of having, say, no native steel or auto works if the U.S. has a falling-out with the countries that make such necessities (and never mind the danger of giving away the experience and expertise to making everything from cars to computers). As the U.S. is currently discovering, infrastructure isn't built once and for all. It needs constant attention. There should be more restructuring of incentives for essential kinds of manufacturing.
Government should definitely do more in initiating retraining programs to help those lose jobs in the flow of technology to find jobs. But the importance and influence of technology cannot be overlooked. At least, politician should show welcome to this trend.
If you clean my home and I cut your hair, what entitles us both to go to Walmart and buy the goods there?
They aren't talking about it, but outsourcing of factory jobs has been disastrous for the environment.
Yes, Pittsburgh is much cleaner than it once was (it's a very nice City now), but consider what would have happened if it was still the Steel City--it might not be as clean as it is now, but it would be much cleaner than it was because the US finally saw the light on pollution controls and efficient manufacturing processes.
Instead, we've shipped the Iron production to China, where there are far fewer pollution controls, and where efficiency is far lower. We marvel at the clean country we've made and the great products we have, but we're not more efficient, we've just outsourced the pollution.
Yes, Pittsburgh is much cleaner than it once was (it's a very nice City now), but consider what would have happened if it was still the Steel City--it might not be as clean as it is now, but it would be much cleaner than it was because the US finally saw the light on pollution controls and efficient manufacturing processes.
Instead, we've shipped the Iron production to China, where there are far fewer pollution controls, and where efficiency is far lower. We marvel at the clean country we've made and the great products we have, but we're not more efficient, we've just outsourced the pollution.
Service will be the main less educated jobs. Lets focus on making those pay better. better hours, better benefits.
1
The US model seems to be the same model that Nortel ascribed to before they went bankrupt. The model is ownership of the intellectual property and management of third parties to produce goods. The US does this by installing compliant leadership in foreign countries which are told what to produce and who transact via the USD. When compliant leadership can not be acquired, the military option works. Under this model there is no need for manufacturing in the US. Wealth for Corporate execs and their managers is obtained via long arm management of enterprises in countries with cheap labor and few environmental and human rights laws. As far as the rest of the 80% of this country's workforce is concerned; they are obsolete. They can work the service jobs serving food or waiting on people in retail stores. There is no interest in offering these folks anything. They no longer matter.
There is a growing interest in returning textile manufacturing and garment production to the United States. Not sweatshops — well-designed workplaces and skilled jobs. The people working in this realm are having trouble finding people who know how to sew — you've written about it in this newspaper.
There are a number of problems with this analysis:
Manufacturing included both domestic and export production. Home health aides are overwhelmingly domestic, so paying them more involves the rest of us paying more. Exports bring in money from other places.
Productivity is still going to be measured in services, and if it does not rise it will be hard to obtain a raise.
While many jobs have been eliminated by productivity increases, others have been traded away for fewer higher paying jobs for the better educated. You can blame the high school graduate in his or her 50's for feeling sold out. The aggregate benefits of trade have obscured the uneven benefits and costs. Trump is exploiting these problems, but the current elite has ignored the problems and denied that there was a tradeoff.
Manufacturing included both domestic and export production. Home health aides are overwhelmingly domestic, so paying them more involves the rest of us paying more. Exports bring in money from other places.
Productivity is still going to be measured in services, and if it does not rise it will be hard to obtain a raise.
While many jobs have been eliminated by productivity increases, others have been traded away for fewer higher paying jobs for the better educated. You can blame the high school graduate in his or her 50's for feeling sold out. The aggregate benefits of trade have obscured the uneven benefits and costs. Trump is exploiting these problems, but the current elite has ignored the problems and denied that there was a tradeoff.
Question: What do we have to do now as a nation, government, people and world leader to build a new era?
Answer: We have to erase the power of political parties to prevent the development of the needed government programs, officials, and expertise so that we can build an entirely new virtuous cycle.
We need to invest in the new moonshots, Internets, fuel efficient cars, new levels of recycling, energy conservation, and sustainable energy production. We need new machines and techniques to rebuild our infrastructure, and new ways to provide Pre-K through PhD education and build a first-class sustainable medical care delivery system.
We need to build a new virtuous cycle as we had during the last half of the last century. It’s not just jobs and higher wages its investment and invention and a virtuous value-add set of new things.
The things we have to do are known, they have to be articulated, and turned into action. We need genius leaders who can find the kinds of people who know where and how to invest like the ones who gave us all the above. It has to be a government-industry consortium and deficit spending as it was during 1950-2000. It will be people who know how to plod and keep trying things. That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secret sauce.
So now we have to pick the person who can attract these quality people and energize them. It’s not going to be Trump and a well-known obstructionist, has-no-sustainable spine, has-no-bench, floundering political party.
Answer: We have to erase the power of political parties to prevent the development of the needed government programs, officials, and expertise so that we can build an entirely new virtuous cycle.
We need to invest in the new moonshots, Internets, fuel efficient cars, new levels of recycling, energy conservation, and sustainable energy production. We need new machines and techniques to rebuild our infrastructure, and new ways to provide Pre-K through PhD education and build a first-class sustainable medical care delivery system.
We need to build a new virtuous cycle as we had during the last half of the last century. It’s not just jobs and higher wages its investment and invention and a virtuous value-add set of new things.
The things we have to do are known, they have to be articulated, and turned into action. We need genius leaders who can find the kinds of people who know where and how to invest like the ones who gave us all the above. It has to be a government-industry consortium and deficit spending as it was during 1950-2000. It will be people who know how to plod and keep trying things. That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secret sauce.
So now we have to pick the person who can attract these quality people and energize them. It’s not going to be Trump and a well-known obstructionist, has-no-sustainable spine, has-no-bench, floundering political party.
Because manufacturing jobs matter. Manufacturing is an important segment to the economy of any country. If manufacturing didn't matter, why do the Asian export economies protect their manufacturing so much? Why does Germany work to protect it's manufacturing base if it doesn't matter?
Ivory tower economists told American workers that we would all thrive in the post industrial information & service economy, as manufacturing jobs were being sent overseas. The model has failed. The working class has been destroyed and service jobs don't pay enough to sustain our retail economy.
The old manufacturing jobs may not be coming back, but it's time for the American government to find ways to grow manufacturing into a larger per cent of GDP.
Ivory tower economists told American workers that we would all thrive in the post industrial information & service economy, as manufacturing jobs were being sent overseas. The model has failed. The working class has been destroyed and service jobs don't pay enough to sustain our retail economy.
The old manufacturing jobs may not be coming back, but it's time for the American government to find ways to grow manufacturing into a larger per cent of GDP.
2
I disagree with the premise of adapting to a service economy.
You can't grow wealth just serving each other moving the same amount of money from person to person.
We must rebuild manufacturing for vital strategic reasons. What if America were isolated by war or politics? Are any boots made in America any longer? Clothes are mostly imported.
Manufacturing adds value to products better known as a profit when we manufacture here and ship products outside the country. America gains wealth.
The economy can't grow without manufacturing profits. Robotics can't do it all. People are still needed.
How about the combined trade deficit? I believe that if we made our own stuff and became an exporter in surplus, we'd have a heck of a growing economy.......................like China.
You can't grow wealth just serving each other moving the same amount of money from person to person.
We must rebuild manufacturing for vital strategic reasons. What if America were isolated by war or politics? Are any boots made in America any longer? Clothes are mostly imported.
Manufacturing adds value to products better known as a profit when we manufacture here and ship products outside the country. America gains wealth.
The economy can't grow without manufacturing profits. Robotics can't do it all. People are still needed.
How about the combined trade deficit? I believe that if we made our own stuff and became an exporter in surplus, we'd have a heck of a growing economy.......................like China.
The return to the U.S. of manufacturing jobs that existed in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s economy can only be made possible by imposing import duties to the similar products now being imported from other countries. Not only those returned jobs will make a very small impact into the lives of those that it is pretended such return would help but the return of those jobs will cause the disappearance of Third Millennium type jobs. Therefore a few unskilled workers will have again long lost low paying, unhealthy jobs and the price we will pay for that will be that many more well educated professionals will lose their own jobs. So someone, unskilled will get a $30,000/year job but two or more well skilled in technology individuals will lose $100,000/year jobs. Re-training is the way to go instead of artificially taking back the economy to the previous Millennium. The necessary imposition of import duties by the United States on products with low technology will be countered by other countries with the imposition by them of similar import duties on the products with a high technological component they now import from the U.S. A complete failure obviously.
1
We are on the brink of a democratization of manufacturing as 3D printing becomes mainstream. I believe in 15 to 20 years most manufacturing will be on site, as needed, and radically change the manufacturing business model. Our challenge must be to look forward and put energy into evolving to keep up with new technology. These changes offer the opportunity for a more equitable manufacturing economy.
I suspect that a large portion of the manufactured goods whose value Applebaum celebrates are found in the military industrial complex -- fighter planes, missiles, bombs, lasers, and so on, all goods that civilians just don't use in their daily lives. Most of this is sold to foreign governments and arms dealers, perpetuating the seemingly endless conflicts and oppression that have marked the too much of the world for the last century.
This article is sooo wrong in implying that a dollar of wealth created by the manufacturing sector is just as good as a dollar created in the service sector. We can't be all health workers, and bankers, and restauranteurs providing selling to each other. An economy of a world power cannot be built on a foundation of services. We'd be like Hawaii.
In the history of human civilizations, the countries that built empires were the ones who built stuff. The Romans, the Brits, and the US were the biggest stuff-builders at their peak. The empires that challenged them --the Carthaginians, the Germans, the Japanese, the Russians, and now China all built lots of stuff. Steel, ships, locomotives, chemicals, etc. (Carthage was an iron age empire, but you get what I mean.)
Venice, is an example of a state that attained some geopolitical heft and then fell behind because its economy was built on trade and banking, and they could not build nor afford ships to maintain their once formidable navy. Trade and banking-- that sounds a lot like Walmart and Wall Street to me. We neglect manufacturing at our own risk.
In the history of human civilizations, the countries that built empires were the ones who built stuff. The Romans, the Brits, and the US were the biggest stuff-builders at their peak. The empires that challenged them --the Carthaginians, the Germans, the Japanese, the Russians, and now China all built lots of stuff. Steel, ships, locomotives, chemicals, etc. (Carthage was an iron age empire, but you get what I mean.)
Venice, is an example of a state that attained some geopolitical heft and then fell behind because its economy was built on trade and banking, and they could not build nor afford ships to maintain their once formidable navy. Trade and banking-- that sounds a lot like Walmart and Wall Street to me. We neglect manufacturing at our own risk.
Millennials should think about this very carefully. Bringing back Second Millennium jobs for a few individuals will kill many of the Third Millennium jobs they, millennials, have now. Don't you millennials thinks for a moment that having again jobs in coal mining, steel mills, etc. is not something that will not affect you. It will... directly. If Steelandia cannot export anymore to the U.S. the steel they manufacture then Steelandia will not import anymore the U.S. designed and manufactured computers, information systems, etc that provide the jobs you, millennials, have now. So, my dear millennials, go and vote to make sure we do not elect anyone that wants to send back our economy to the post WWII years.
1
thanks for your info, as our city just gave tax breaks to a man who wants to start another industrial park. The old one, from the 1950's does well, but now the Chamber says they have to secretly fight for any new businesses who might want to come to our city......such businesses might just be phantoms
What I i find most disturbing is so many Americans have the illusion that all our jobs have gone overseas.Yes some manufacturing jobs did leave these shores when NAFTA occurred-- However we are no longer a country of manufacturing. Most jobs today surround technology and what miffs me most is nearly all American employers refuse to want train their employees. Yes it is an investment but when you show that you care about your employee you will gain their loyalty. Also employers and managers need to understand that people have lives outside of work . There needs to be more flexibility. TRAINING IS KEY! .technology changes so rapidly it's difficult for gainfully employed folks to keep abreast of everything. Also Age discrimination needs to cease! It is evident that millennials are very tech savvy but most often lack patience and attention span: Often have poor people skills and expect a lot for doing little. There needs to be a balance of seasoned employees with the younger generation. each and learn from the other . Until we except that the work force will never be like it was several decadea ago this country will remain stagnant with job growth.
If it comes down to one reason that Trump gets the top job, this will be it. Are Chinese manufacturers buying up waterfront mansions in America as they are in Australia? Amazing how you can disguise a passive invasion. Last year I watched my grandkids tearing at Xmas wrappers to get at shiny plastic tipper-trucks and beach buckets and slippery blow-up water slides. They'll be back again this year for much the same. Meanwhile Santa's surprise of Xmas gone have long gone to the local tip. On a national expose TV network story this week many young Chinese were winning all the real estate auctions. And so I concluded with reasonable and not racist deduction that perhaps their wealth came from the throwaways that entertain our grandchildren for at least a few days each year.
I think this article is fully one way traffic in favour of service sector without understanding the significance of manufacturing sector. I think many Americans seem to believe this idea. As such America doesn't produce the goods that are very much needed for a country of more than 300 million people.
Yes, manufacturing has huge problems especially in the field of environment but strict rules and regulations can limit the problems to a great extent. Moreover automation hasn't reduced jobs handled by people fully though to some extent. Further manufacturing sector surely needs employees in various fields including service in the form of planning, design, procurement, stores, management, sales, general administration, accounting, erection and commissioning, security etc.
Even considering the case of Pittsburghas mentioned in this article, automation will not immediately wipe out all jobs in the transport sector that soon. It will take at least few decades at least to replace all the staff mentioned in this article that too if implemented successfully since many practical problems are sure to be faced while implementing automation on roads. It needs to be implemented in phases and not at a stretch beginning with the automated cars.
Yes, manufacturing has huge problems especially in the field of environment but strict rules and regulations can limit the problems to a great extent. Moreover automation hasn't reduced jobs handled by people fully though to some extent. Further manufacturing sector surely needs employees in various fields including service in the form of planning, design, procurement, stores, management, sales, general administration, accounting, erection and commissioning, security etc.
Even considering the case of Pittsburghas mentioned in this article, automation will not immediately wipe out all jobs in the transport sector that soon. It will take at least few decades at least to replace all the staff mentioned in this article that too if implemented successfully since many practical problems are sure to be faced while implementing automation on roads. It needs to be implemented in phases and not at a stretch beginning with the automated cars.
It wasn't nostalgia that turned the tide in the allies favor in World War II.
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Manufacturing produces things that you an see, use or sit in. The products of services are more ephemeral. Nobody can doubt the contribution of software or travel or movies but there are other services of dubious value. I am sure Hedge Fund managers and real estate brokers are well paid but the last two bubbles revealed the services they created did not benefit anybody but themselves. Trump's tax accountants got paid handsomely for getting his taxes to zero, but is there any real value created there?
Whatever the merits of this argument--and I would certainly agree that service workers need better wages, benefits, and working conditions--one thing we do know as an absolute fact. Trump's plan to offer massive supply tax cuts to the nation's top earners and large corporations will do nothing to restore the country's manufacturing base.
As the economist Lester Thurow’s maintained—because manufacturing is the largest purchaser of services. There are no large world economies without a strong manufacturing base and it may not be possible in the U.S. If manufacturing is transportable across national boundaries, many services are even more portable.
Lose a manufacturing base you begin to lose a surprising number of associated jobs. You can’t just say, as we did, “oh, we’ll just do the brainiac work and outsource the heavy lifting.” It just doesn’t work that way because you need to see the stuff being made, you need technicians going to school to become EE’s, you need kids working as circuit designers in the factory, you need to expose people to what is possible and available. That’s why you have labs in chemistry, physics and electronics! We are attached to the physical world.
We have run a trade deficit in goods since essentially the Carter presidency. Our former current account surplus went to deficit as we lost manufacturing. Our last 4 quarters of C.A. deficit are around 469 billion dollars. This might not seem a lot these days, but as Warren Buffett pointed out, “it’s like eating another piece of toast in the morning. It’s only about 90 calories, but at the end of the year you’ve gained 9 pounds, and after a decade you are obese.” (I paraphrase) We’ve been eating a LOT of toast. Sorry, but services, or even marathon running isn’t going to work it off.
Lose a manufacturing base you begin to lose a surprising number of associated jobs. You can’t just say, as we did, “oh, we’ll just do the brainiac work and outsource the heavy lifting.” It just doesn’t work that way because you need to see the stuff being made, you need technicians going to school to become EE’s, you need kids working as circuit designers in the factory, you need to expose people to what is possible and available. That’s why you have labs in chemistry, physics and electronics! We are attached to the physical world.
We have run a trade deficit in goods since essentially the Carter presidency. Our former current account surplus went to deficit as we lost manufacturing. Our last 4 quarters of C.A. deficit are around 469 billion dollars. This might not seem a lot these days, but as Warren Buffett pointed out, “it’s like eating another piece of toast in the morning. It’s only about 90 calories, but at the end of the year you’ve gained 9 pounds, and after a decade you are obese.” (I paraphrase) We’ve been eating a LOT of toast. Sorry, but services, or even marathon running isn’t going to work it off.
My father used to tell of attending his economics class on the morning of Dec. 8, 1941. The class walked in to find 2 columns of figures with sums at the bottom on the chalkboard. The professor walked in and said something like;
"So, we are at war. The Japanese have surprised us with their capability. The Germans, as I saw for myself in 1918, are formidable fighters and will not be pushovers. Some of you boys will not live to see the end of this."
"But make NO mistake, we will not lose this war. These columns note how much steel and aluminum and how many vehicles we and our allies can produce. That column is the same for Germany and Japan. You can see the difference."
"They are going to be simply overwhelmed".
He was right. And that, in the final most brutal analysis, is why manufacturing matters.
"So, we are at war. The Japanese have surprised us with their capability. The Germans, as I saw for myself in 1918, are formidable fighters and will not be pushovers. Some of you boys will not live to see the end of this."
"But make NO mistake, we will not lose this war. These columns note how much steel and aluminum and how many vehicles we and our allies can produce. That column is the same for Germany and Japan. You can see the difference."
"They are going to be simply overwhelmed".
He was right. And that, in the final most brutal analysis, is why manufacturing matters.
It is possibly not simply a romance for manufacturing, it is a desire for truly, meaningful work and existence. People spent years learning a real skill, and took pride in being part of a team that produced a car or a refrigerator. It is hard to feel any pride in serving coffee or selling cell-phone plans.
Back in the '60's when I was in college, we studied the upcoming robots and mechanization of the work place. The assumption then was that everyone would benefit from the increased productivity they would bring. Instead, worker's earnings have not kept up with the productivity gains. They have all gone to the top. Those productivity gains could have gone to support fewer working hours and higher wages and more benefits for working people, more leisure time for everyone, healthcare for everyone, and a better standard of living and lifestyle for everyone. We should have more money for good schools, environmental enhancement, better transportation systems, and a living wage for everyone. Instead, all the wealth has gone to the top. We have people who have more money that they know what to do with at the top, and many struggling people below. We have sections of our population who have a very difficult time getting ahead at all. The people with good jobs work harder than ever and still don't get pay close to their productivity. We have people making millions of dollars who pay no income taxes because the tax law has been written for them. We have many profitable businesses that don't pay their workers enough to live and refer them to medicaid, food stamps, and other government programs, largely funded by the middle class workers that still exist. Wages have not begun to keep up with the increased productivity of workers. That's what happened to the US economy.
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Here is a service.
I sing a song for you and you pay me a dollar.
You sing a song for me and I pay you a dollar.
The GDP just rose by 2 dollars.
Was any value added to society?
Sorry - but making "stuff" does make jobs that matter.
I sing a song for you and you pay me a dollar.
You sing a song for me and I pay you a dollar.
The GDP just rose by 2 dollars.
Was any value added to society?
Sorry - but making "stuff" does make jobs that matter.
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Another good question: Why does anyone want manufacturing jobs back? Repetitive physical tasks are something ideal for automation. In my opinion, automating people out of manufacturing jobs was great. The failure of the people to choose a government that would capture the gains made from the displacement of those workers was not.
Please not another "we can all serve each other" fantasy. Farming is not a service, in fact the whole production of food until its final "serving " is industrial and manufacturing based.
I suspect the author is young and/or inexperienced in life to trot out this old argument. But why doesn't the editorial staff catch this kind of derivative, second rate work?
I suspect the author is young and/or inexperienced in life to trot out this old argument. But why doesn't the editorial staff catch this kind of derivative, second rate work?
They should focus on neither manufacturing nor on service jobs. They should focus on finding a way for people to work less. Shorter days. More days off. More time to oversee the democracy. More time to be human.
I always wonder why people say that they want to bring manufacturing jobs back. These people have probably never worked in factories as a regular worker. Working in a factory is not that great.
I wonder if we can have a helthy, prosperous, well balanced economy without a strong secondary sector. Industry is not only about jobs. It is about a better balance of trade, it is stronger control of all production phases, it is also about national security.
I am not talking about reducing trade or economic integration. To the contrary.
What I think is that is that a world divided by industry nations and service nations seems not stable. It is bad for all.
I am not talking about reducing trade or economic integration. To the contrary.
What I think is that is that a world divided by industry nations and service nations seems not stable. It is bad for all.
Most comments here seem to miss the main point of the article: we have not lost manufacturing: We have cut the number of people it takes to produce things, and as a result the manufacturing sector employs fewer people: "The value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016."
One could argue: well, what about those new Ford plants in Mexico? We want them back! However, Ford cannot afford to hire US workers to assemble cars anymore than McDonalds can hire PhDs to flip hamburgers. But Ford can, and does, hire US workers to design, innovate, and create.
The reality: Most people work in service jobs, so that's what the candidates should talk about.
One could argue: well, what about those new Ford plants in Mexico? We want them back! However, Ford cannot afford to hire US workers to assemble cars anymore than McDonalds can hire PhDs to flip hamburgers. But Ford can, and does, hire US workers to design, innovate, and create.
The reality: Most people work in service jobs, so that's what the candidates should talk about.
For many people there is a fundamental sense of pride and accomplishment in creating something physical, a joy that isn't the same as asking "when would you like to schedule your next appointment?"
C'mon, it's all about the "good old days". If we didn't have the "good old days" to harken back to, then how would elections be fought? Why look to the future when it's so much cozier and easier to moan about the past no longer being present?
Manufacturing has and is, still capable of, delivering rising real wages through increased productivity. To a great extent, services are inherently limited in their ability to continuously increase productivity, and thus present the divergent paths of low-price/low-wage production (i.e. hair stylist) or rising-cost/high-wage production (i.e. doctor).
Opening the American market to low-wage producers of consumer and capital goods was a conscious decision, not a historical necessity. The much needed re-balancing of the American economy will also need to be driven by equally conscious decisions.
Opening the American market to low-wage producers of consumer and capital goods was a conscious decision, not a historical necessity. The much needed re-balancing of the American economy will also need to be driven by equally conscious decisions.
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Manufacturing provided a good living thirty years ago. I knew people who were toolmakers who put their kids through college, went on vacations, bought new cars...
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Here's the irony - Trump and Repubs are suddenly so obsessed with manufacturing jobs yet have done nothing but encourage union busting. The middle class thrives when Unions thrive. No coincidence that the demise of unions have led to the crush of the middle class in this country. Even more ironic - union workers who support Trump. No one has been more supportive of Unions and the right to unionize than Dems and HRC. Trump outsourced labor on his construction sites and his own Trump products are manufactured overseas. He used Chinese steel on his buildings and stiffed union workers in his bankruptcies.
Politicians will always crave manufacturing or mining jobs for the simple reason that they both transfer CASH into a political division. Manufacturing and mining are also far less likely to migrate.
Take banking, where the service is "management" and billions of dollars of assets are needed to make millions in net income. Ten or fifteen million of transferred tax liabilities (from the plant owners to the citizens) can generate a billion in economic activity in a county or city. And it is supremely easy to move banks, insurance companies, and hedge funds; just a couple of keystrokes and The First National Bank goes from Chicago to Grand Rapids.
It's simple algebra (listen up high schoolers; algebra IS useful!!!).
Bottom line is that you can survive on service, but thrive on manufacturing, because that is where that real money is to be made.
Take banking, where the service is "management" and billions of dollars of assets are needed to make millions in net income. Ten or fifteen million of transferred tax liabilities (from the plant owners to the citizens) can generate a billion in economic activity in a county or city. And it is supremely easy to move banks, insurance companies, and hedge funds; just a couple of keystrokes and The First National Bank goes from Chicago to Grand Rapids.
It's simple algebra (listen up high schoolers; algebra IS useful!!!).
Bottom line is that you can survive on service, but thrive on manufacturing, because that is where that real money is to be made.
Consider this: the problems of Detroit, Gary Indiana, and places like this could easily be solved if the manufacture of $50 billion in goods were moved from China to there.
There is no other way out for these places.
There is no other way out for these places.
As someone who started life in plating factory, plating automotive bumpers, than in a foundry, casting machine foundations, then moving on to a company who made high quality, centerless round grounding machines for the automotive industry:
Mr. Applebaum has no idea what manufacturing is about.
He is the classic example of writing about something he has never experienced - if this should remind you about a recent discussion of Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Lionel Shriver, you are correct.
Mr. Applebaum has no idea what manufacturing is about.
He is the classic example of writing about something he has never experienced - if this should remind you about a recent discussion of Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Lionel Shriver, you are correct.
Didn't anyone read the article? We make more things than anyone else and more than we have ever made in our entire history. We also don't need many people to do it and will need even less people in the future. Firms in Germany et al would love to have our productivity.
Manufacturing will be like agriculture: huge quantities produced and few people in the production.
How is a service not a good? You start with a human, give her a mask, gown, scalpel and she saves a life. But yet readers think producing a plastic dish rack or back scratcher is a more noble use of resources. That is ridiculous.
My father and that generation worked in factories for some portion of their lives and hated it. The jobs were horrible. He would laugh reading stories romanticizing factory jobs.
The same things that happened to our factories will happen everywhere else on the planet. We just went first. It makes no sense to try to restore something that cannot be.
Manufacturing will be like agriculture: huge quantities produced and few people in the production.
How is a service not a good? You start with a human, give her a mask, gown, scalpel and she saves a life. But yet readers think producing a plastic dish rack or back scratcher is a more noble use of resources. That is ridiculous.
My father and that generation worked in factories for some portion of their lives and hated it. The jobs were horrible. He would laugh reading stories romanticizing factory jobs.
The same things that happened to our factories will happen everywhere else on the planet. We just went first. It makes no sense to try to restore something that cannot be.
Given how weak his understanding and how many fallacies he is pumping out it is a shame this is who the Times picks to write on this subject.
Just for a couple:
Trade, not only technology, is responsible for job loss in manufacturing. We run a trade deficit in goods of about $800 billion per year (only partially offset by a surplus in services). In short, we don't produce what we consume, we import much of what we consume, and we borrow from others to pay for it. Can that last indefinitely? Probably not. Better to get those millions of jobs back and stop having to borrow from others to finance our consumption.
He also pushes the fallacy that services and manufacturing are equivalent and interchangeable. They are not. You must create "tradeable" items (largely manufactured items, food, or natural resources) to base your prosperity on. No country of any significance has ever become prosperous based on services, they all do it based on manufacturing (for a good explanation you don't have to read more than the introduction to "Concrete Economics" by Brad DeLong.
Sadly, many Americans share these misconceptions. They think that with well paying manufacturing jobs fleeing we can simply up wages for fast food workers and home health aides and we will be fine. It won't work and we are already paying a steep price for these misconceptions.
Just for a couple:
Trade, not only technology, is responsible for job loss in manufacturing. We run a trade deficit in goods of about $800 billion per year (only partially offset by a surplus in services). In short, we don't produce what we consume, we import much of what we consume, and we borrow from others to pay for it. Can that last indefinitely? Probably not. Better to get those millions of jobs back and stop having to borrow from others to finance our consumption.
He also pushes the fallacy that services and manufacturing are equivalent and interchangeable. They are not. You must create "tradeable" items (largely manufactured items, food, or natural resources) to base your prosperity on. No country of any significance has ever become prosperous based on services, they all do it based on manufacturing (for a good explanation you don't have to read more than the introduction to "Concrete Economics" by Brad DeLong.
Sadly, many Americans share these misconceptions. They think that with well paying manufacturing jobs fleeing we can simply up wages for fast food workers and home health aides and we will be fine. It won't work and we are already paying a steep price for these misconceptions.
A society that doesn't make anything will not innovate or develop anything. An economy based on people making burritos for each other is not going to support high wages just because the government or a union tells the employer to pay high wages to burrito makers. This kind of foolish thinking is what got us in this mess in the first place. Trade representatives who said "it doesn't matter whether America makes computer chips or potato chips." Discovery, innovation and invention comes from the creative process that is manufacturing. It is in America's DNA, and unless we get it back, our economy will die.
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Owned three manufacturing companies. Hired non union and union workforce. Paid both the same. Steel in 1980, specialized gears, trained my folks who were rural, but they programmed CNC machines. Plastic in 1998, so specialized we controlled by robot. Over 30 years, we went from CNC to robots. There are no workers with non tech skills in manufacturing, here or in China. Millions of jobs are unfilled here. Joe lunch bucket has been dead for nearly a generation. We owe him nothing but new skills. Mrs Joe Lunchbucket, however, is showing up.
Manufacturing involves research, engineering and development. When we stop making rocket engines and iPhones, and focus only on services like driving cars or running restaurants -- we may use human capital but we lose brain capital.
In the future automaton world, a nation with a brain capital will be worth a lot more than one with just the human capital -- it is like comparing gold bullion to paper currency in today's world.
In the future automaton world, a nation with a brain capital will be worth a lot more than one with just the human capital -- it is like comparing gold bullion to paper currency in today's world.
It's sad how many are so willing to write off American manufacturing as though it's a foregone conclusion that we'll never do any manufacturing again. If anything, we've not seen any serious effort from this Administration to establish modernized manufacturing here in the US. We certainly not seen any creativity or solutions being proposed.
Before we give up we should give other Administrations a shot at it. This one has been more interested in federal programs than the private sector. Others will have to be more focused on business and making the American industries competitive again. We cannot continue like this.
Before we give up we should give other Administrations a shot at it. This one has been more interested in federal programs than the private sector. Others will have to be more focused on business and making the American industries competitive again. We cannot continue like this.
1
If you don't manufacture, you don't produce, you are not creative. Sorry Binyamin, but your premise that service industry is what we should nurture is short sighted and boring
1
While I agree with the author that automation has dramatically reduced the need for manufacturing workers, there is still a reason politicians pursue factories. Each manufacturing jobs generates many other jobs in supporting businesses. Each service industry job generates one job, period. (I suppose maybe a fraction of a job is created for the business that washes and irons the uniforms.)
But the best way to create jobs is to make it easier for employers to hire people. Employers don't hire people because they are nice guys. They hire people so they can make more money. Right now minimum wage laws, mandatory healthcare insurance, and a whole host of other regulations make it difficult and expensive to hire people.
I look forward to the day when fast food restaurants will be fully automated and other than restocking the food and emptying the cash, no employees will be needed.
But the best way to create jobs is to make it easier for employers to hire people. Employers don't hire people because they are nice guys. They hire people so they can make more money. Right now minimum wage laws, mandatory healthcare insurance, and a whole host of other regulations make it difficult and expensive to hire people.
I look forward to the day when fast food restaurants will be fully automated and other than restocking the food and emptying the cash, no employees will be needed.
Lacking from this article is the fact that US corporations are faced with highest tax rate of any other nation. Not only does the cost of labor factor into the decisions if US companies keep manufacturing jobs in the US or across borders , but if the companies' entity " Should stay or go" to benefit from these lower tax rates.
Higher tax rates do not only impact the bottom line, but also reduces benefits many Americans seek to have that all but a few other nations have, paid family leave.
The past few days WNYC radio, part of NPR (National Public Radio) is doing a series on "Paid Family Leave" and today indicated that in many other nation such as France and Canada workers can pay into a program in order to take months of leave for maternity and keep their jobs. One aspect the reporter did not go into is that who companies or government agencies managed without this person for 3 to 12 months; did the work go undone, are their job functions shared amongst co-workers, etc. ?
Perhaps the reason they did not investigate avenue is because businesses in other countries can afford to hire another person for the short-term since they have less taxes to pay.
Higher tax rates do not only impact the bottom line, but also reduces benefits many Americans seek to have that all but a few other nations have, paid family leave.
The past few days WNYC radio, part of NPR (National Public Radio) is doing a series on "Paid Family Leave" and today indicated that in many other nation such as France and Canada workers can pay into a program in order to take months of leave for maternity and keep their jobs. One aspect the reporter did not go into is that who companies or government agencies managed without this person for 3 to 12 months; did the work go undone, are their job functions shared amongst co-workers, etc. ?
Perhaps the reason they did not investigate avenue is because businesses in other countries can afford to hire another person for the short-term since they have less taxes to pay.
Did we not already know that Trump used Chinese steel and aluminum in his recent building projects? Didn't Newsweek report on that before Trump promised to revive the American steel industry? We had steel here. It just cost too much for Trump and, as of his last project anyway, convicts here weren't making any. But it seems he had a very practical opportunity to revive the steel industry right then. But again, nope. Cost too much.
Fortunately, this most lying, hypocritical mess of a candidate is fading fast. He'll soon be done...and then a driver-less cab can drop him at oblivion.
Fortunately, this most lying, hypocritical mess of a candidate is fading fast. He'll soon be done...and then a driver-less cab can drop him at oblivion.
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Two issues that are missed here:
Trump's base is older people and people who are a little better off than average. People in the media keep seeking out these "Reagan Democrat" types when the base for Trump is elsewhere.
Second, other than Europe, we don't have a real model for a service economy w/o disparities and even in Europe, they have preserved manufacturing in some places (like Germany) as well as agriculture and small business. They also have active organized labor.
The consequences of a Trump economy will be more crony capitalism and less regulation which will take us away from anything that might address disparities.
Trump's base is older people and people who are a little better off than average. People in the media keep seeking out these "Reagan Democrat" types when the base for Trump is elsewhere.
Second, other than Europe, we don't have a real model for a service economy w/o disparities and even in Europe, they have preserved manufacturing in some places (like Germany) as well as agriculture and small business. They also have active organized labor.
The consequences of a Trump economy will be more crony capitalism and less regulation which will take us away from anything that might address disparities.
Politicians like talking about manufacturing and coal-mining because these are seen as (and disproportionately are) jobs with male workers, whereas service sector jobs are seen as (and disproportionately are) jobs with female workers. The gender stereotype is especially strong for roles like home health aides, because both care work (e.g. nursing, childcare) and work that takes place in the home (e.g. cleaning) are stereotyped as feminine. As long as the old-fashioned ideal of the male-breadwinner is popular and many men feel 'entitled' to a traditionally masculine job then politicians seeking their votes will focus too much on male-dominated jobs and too little on female-dominated jobs.
In short, the problem is gender inequality and a gender segregated labor market. If the home health aides were men then they would get more attention from politicians. But if more men were willing to do service sector work such as being home health aides then male unemployment rates would not be rising the way they are.
In short, the problem is gender inequality and a gender segregated labor market. If the home health aides were men then they would get more attention from politicians. But if more men were willing to do service sector work such as being home health aides then male unemployment rates would not be rising the way they are.
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"... struggling mass of fast-food workers and security guards and nannies."
Sorry, this is not the story I wanted to read. The backbones of every world power are the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. Now, I'm not saying the Trumpet is paying attention to these important "fruits" of this great land. I do believe people in the service sectors are grossly underpaid.
We simply cannot continue to expand into a service-based economy unless we also provide housing and social/medical care that are affordable to all.
The magic wand is redistribution of wealth; the 1%ers want no part of it (pun intended.) That is the real problem in this country. Pure greed, disregard for the dignity of others, and the undervaluing of labor that enriches boards, owners, CEOs and stockholders create oppressive economic hardship and problems for the 99%. The top brass reap the rewards, rather than those who manufacture, invent, or sell the products that made the greedy pigs wealthy. In a downturn, the little guys lose their jobs, rather than CEOs cutting their own pay to keep their companies operating.
This country needs more profit-sharing and collaborative management. How does a top exec earn his/her bonus? You guessed it: The little guys were more productive than they were the year before. Shouldn't the bonus be divided up among them? A CEO is nothing without the lower echelons creating goods that sell and earn profits for the companies.
Sorry, this is not the story I wanted to read. The backbones of every world power are the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. Now, I'm not saying the Trumpet is paying attention to these important "fruits" of this great land. I do believe people in the service sectors are grossly underpaid.
We simply cannot continue to expand into a service-based economy unless we also provide housing and social/medical care that are affordable to all.
The magic wand is redistribution of wealth; the 1%ers want no part of it (pun intended.) That is the real problem in this country. Pure greed, disregard for the dignity of others, and the undervaluing of labor that enriches boards, owners, CEOs and stockholders create oppressive economic hardship and problems for the 99%. The top brass reap the rewards, rather than those who manufacture, invent, or sell the products that made the greedy pigs wealthy. In a downturn, the little guys lose their jobs, rather than CEOs cutting their own pay to keep their companies operating.
This country needs more profit-sharing and collaborative management. How does a top exec earn his/her bonus? You guessed it: The little guys were more productive than they were the year before. Shouldn't the bonus be divided up among them? A CEO is nothing without the lower echelons creating goods that sell and earn profits for the companies.
1
The entire concept of payroll is what's wrong.
Payroll jobs addict workers to being wage-slaves in someone else's enterprise.
The entire structure of 'jobs', big business vs. Big labor, is an artificial construction born of plantations & factories, neither of which are a natural approach to working for a living.
Once upon a time people were artisans & subsistence farmers. Anyone working for anyone else should be free to do so as an independent contractor.
Independent contractors are the real free enterprise system.
The government should not have its claws in workers payroll by withholding tax from their pay checks, & burdening employers with the insane bookkeeping of payroll.
Workers should be independently allowed to invoice their labor, deduct their expenses, form collectives of independent individuals & not be forced into top-down wage-slave government-mandated withholding & control.
Get government hands off everyone's paycheck. Tax net income after expenses if they must but free each individual to reap the risks & rewards of independent business owners.
All payroll jobs, whether manufacturing or service, are a myth. Eliminate the payroll tax system. We are individuals, not 'labor'.
Payroll jobs addict workers to being wage-slaves in someone else's enterprise.
The entire structure of 'jobs', big business vs. Big labor, is an artificial construction born of plantations & factories, neither of which are a natural approach to working for a living.
Once upon a time people were artisans & subsistence farmers. Anyone working for anyone else should be free to do so as an independent contractor.
Independent contractors are the real free enterprise system.
The government should not have its claws in workers payroll by withholding tax from their pay checks, & burdening employers with the insane bookkeeping of payroll.
Workers should be independently allowed to invoice their labor, deduct their expenses, form collectives of independent individuals & not be forced into top-down wage-slave government-mandated withholding & control.
Get government hands off everyone's paycheck. Tax net income after expenses if they must but free each individual to reap the risks & rewards of independent business owners.
All payroll jobs, whether manufacturing or service, are a myth. Eliminate the payroll tax system. We are individuals, not 'labor'.
1
People take economic statistics a little too literally. The part of the U.S. labor force that worked on farms fell from 41% to 1.9% between 1900 and 2000, so American agriculture disappeared, right? Um, not exactly. But a much greater part of the value of agricultural output was attributed to work done off-farm, manufacturing equipment and chemicals and providing services.
A firm that sells manufactured goods buys lots of services. If they're employees, then that's manufacturing work, even if the employees are (ugh!) lawyers. But if it's from a specialized service firm (a law firm), it's not manufacturing.
Specialization is part of, if not most of, what's driving up services and productivity in manufacturing in the U.S. What people are nostalgic about is low-productivity manufacturing, not manufacturing per se.
Mr. Appelbaum has it exactly right that to address low-paid work we need to focus on the labor market, not the product markets.
A firm that sells manufactured goods buys lots of services. If they're employees, then that's manufacturing work, even if the employees are (ugh!) lawyers. But if it's from a specialized service firm (a law firm), it's not manufacturing.
Specialization is part of, if not most of, what's driving up services and productivity in manufacturing in the U.S. What people are nostalgic about is low-productivity manufacturing, not manufacturing per se.
Mr. Appelbaum has it exactly right that to address low-paid work we need to focus on the labor market, not the product markets.
The global economy is in big trouble.
Soon technology and population growth will create massive widespread unemployment.
Governments must implement job creation initiatives that result in people consuming human services that improve peoples' lives: health care, education, restaurants, leisure, vacations.
In order to consume those human services, people must be paid such that they can afford those services.
Governments must also increase the work force with infrastructure projects and housing.
Yes, it means expanding government, and yes, the wealthiest are going to have to pay for it.
It is that, or the wealthiest will learn that the saying, "idle hands are the tools of the devil" is true.
Soon technology and population growth will create massive widespread unemployment.
Governments must implement job creation initiatives that result in people consuming human services that improve peoples' lives: health care, education, restaurants, leisure, vacations.
In order to consume those human services, people must be paid such that they can afford those services.
Governments must also increase the work force with infrastructure projects and housing.
Yes, it means expanding government, and yes, the wealthiest are going to have to pay for it.
It is that, or the wealthiest will learn that the saying, "idle hands are the tools of the devil" is true.
"The city’s jobs, however, increasingly are divided between a prospering college-educated elite of lawyers and doctors and bankers and a struggling mass of fast-food workers and security guards and nannies."
Leaving aside the demagoguery of Trump or even the pandering of other politicians, the excerpt points out why middle class manufacturing jobs are necessary. It's not that Americans don't need manufactured items like steel or consumer goods like TV's and DVR's (the VCR of the our time), we do, but bad economic theory has taken hold of trade policy and the corporate mindset: we've been told we're an educated, middle class country that doesn't need mass production jobs. We only need white collar jobs so let Asians and Latin Americans do that "menial" work. However, not only isn't every American well educated or suited to service jobs, but the only way wages will rise and living standards increase is to have full employment, which can only be achieved by a return of manufacturing jobs. Instead of the tax code incentivizing debt and business loss (i.e., the Trump loss $917 million), the tax code should promote investment in the industries that made this country great, made the blue collar middle class, and we still need.Also, If we really want to check China's growth, we must disinvest from that country.
Leaving aside the demagoguery of Trump or even the pandering of other politicians, the excerpt points out why middle class manufacturing jobs are necessary. It's not that Americans don't need manufactured items like steel or consumer goods like TV's and DVR's (the VCR of the our time), we do, but bad economic theory has taken hold of trade policy and the corporate mindset: we've been told we're an educated, middle class country that doesn't need mass production jobs. We only need white collar jobs so let Asians and Latin Americans do that "menial" work. However, not only isn't every American well educated or suited to service jobs, but the only way wages will rise and living standards increase is to have full employment, which can only be achieved by a return of manufacturing jobs. Instead of the tax code incentivizing debt and business loss (i.e., the Trump loss $917 million), the tax code should promote investment in the industries that made this country great, made the blue collar middle class, and we still need.Also, If we really want to check China's growth, we must disinvest from that country.
Service jobs are ripe for unionizing and collective bargaining will push a new group into the middle class of the USA!
1
F. List would say, "When we fight the next world war, we will understand the value of manufacturing experience and infrastructure."
1
To paraphrase Wilde, cynical business chiefs 'know the price of everything and the value of nothing.' They beat down the price of labor without recognizing the value of workers -- providing services or manufacturing capacity -- in maintaining the social system that makes business itself possible.
Consumers already have implicit expectations of quality in service work -- typically made visible by the frustration with telephonic customer support or unpleasant restaurant service. But too often, the service worker takes the brunt of customer anger on behalf of businesses that set up that worker to fail.
If we want quality services and quality products, we must demand that businesses pay their fair share to provide quality jobs in both service and manufacturing sectors. Otherwise, the relentless pursuit of maximum profit, at all costs, will continue to pit one group of workers against another -- based on race, gender, or nationality -- until a minimum wage and a 40 hour work week become distant memories.
Certainly, raising the quality of service jobs certainly deserves more attention from politicians. But let's set our goal as family-sustaining, middle class jobs for all.
Consumers already have implicit expectations of quality in service work -- typically made visible by the frustration with telephonic customer support or unpleasant restaurant service. But too often, the service worker takes the brunt of customer anger on behalf of businesses that set up that worker to fail.
If we want quality services and quality products, we must demand that businesses pay their fair share to provide quality jobs in both service and manufacturing sectors. Otherwise, the relentless pursuit of maximum profit, at all costs, will continue to pit one group of workers against another -- based on race, gender, or nationality -- until a minimum wage and a 40 hour work week become distant memories.
Certainly, raising the quality of service jobs certainly deserves more attention from politicians. But let's set our goal as family-sustaining, middle class jobs for all.
1
I have to tell you - Unions do need to get involved and the national min wage must go up. Many of us do have a complicated view of unions because I think they've gone a bit too far in some cases; however, I'll just mention retail workers. They are not paid a living wage - from fast food, clothing stores to furniture stores. Companies, largely, offer part-time employment/no benefits to non-managers (while dangling the full-time carrot to non-managers), schedule their part-time employees around 30-32 hours a week and treat them poorly (a broad brush I know). They've traded high turnover for low wages and no benefits and a lot of it is because they're publicly traded companies so it's all for their stockholders.
SOMETHING must be done.
SOMETHING must be done.
1
It's not the politicians it's the folks who used to have full time well paying work. You can't be a great nation without an industrial base. Even from the point of view of national security, there are manufacturing skills that should not be lost to Asia.
12
Manufacturing is a term implying hand labor (from the Latin). Playing a guitar or piano to make music or sculpting stone or wood require manufacture. Assembling a smart phone, operating a lathe or driving a car are operations where automata (robots, if you will) may not only do the job, they may do it better than the human hand. A key point in the article, and one missed by those who object to the authors commentary, is that the role of technology since the beginning of the industrial revolution has been to replace repetitive hand labor wherever possible. The hugely automated agricultural economy in this country has no need for scythe swingers. The mechanized and automated plowing, weeding and harvesting gear throughout industry requires a tiny percentage of the hand labor of the 1980s. The typewriter is now a matter of history. Wherever you look, jobs will involve human-human interaction and that is where more and better jobs will appear. When I go into a megastore like Lowes or Home Depot, it's a comfort to ask a human, "Where's the screwdrivers?" rather than wasting time wandering aisles or looking for a computer for guidance. Try to work the automated answering systems to get a simple answer can be a nightmare. Yes, there are human-human jobs that will grow as the the other types of employment fade. And the key will be both training and adequate compensation to provide the dignity of work.
Work harder, work faster and work smarter and you might survive in the artificially intelligent free-ranging robotic high tech modern world, but probably not, unless you have money or connections.
10
Mr. Applebaum has no idea about manufacturing job. JL laid it out very well (No 1 readers pick)
Why are Alstrom workers, 480 of them, right now, fighting in France to keep their manufacturing jobs, all the way to top French politics ? Because their pride in turning out locomotives, and better pay then in service jobs.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/societes/2016/09/30/20005-20160930ARTFIG00310-als...
For what a well run factory town in the US looked liked, before imports destroyed it , read this little masterpiece from a provincial paper
"Hemingway used one. Cronkite, Vonnegut and Capote used one. And they were all made here."
http://www.ithacajournal.com/story/news/local/2016/04/29/hemingway-groto...
As writer, Mr. Appelbaum should read it.
--------------------
Why are Alstrom workers, 480 of them, right now, fighting in France to keep their manufacturing jobs, all the way to top French politics ? Because their pride in turning out locomotives, and better pay then in service jobs.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/societes/2016/09/30/20005-20160930ARTFIG00310-als...
For what a well run factory town in the US looked liked, before imports destroyed it , read this little masterpiece from a provincial paper
"Hemingway used one. Cronkite, Vonnegut and Capote used one. And they were all made here."
http://www.ithacajournal.com/story/news/local/2016/04/29/hemingway-groto...
As writer, Mr. Appelbaum should read it.
--------------------
28
"The manufacturing boom of the postwar years was an oddity, and there will be no repeat of the concatenation that made it happen..."
This is a straw-man argument. I mean, no kidding the 1950s aren't coming back. But that doesn't mean it isn't in the national interest to maintain a viable manufacturing sector, even if it requires government intervention in the marketplace.
I'd point readers to an opinion piece written in this paper in March in the wake of former Intel CEO Andrew Grove's death. In "Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley," Teresa Tritch recounts Grove's concern that the constant push by American companies to "scale up" new technologies in Asia rather than back home ultimately compromises our ability to develop the next new technologies. Grove is quoted as writing, “All of us in business have a responsibility to maintain the industrial base on which we depend and the society whose adaptability — and stability — we may have taken for granted.”
If our nation's corporate executive class continues its Ayn Randian chase after the cheapest possible fulfillment path, eventually the corporate execute class calling the shots will be over in India and China. Of course, the Indians and Chinese would be perfectly happy to see America's policymakers heed Binyamin Appelbaum's advice.
This is a straw-man argument. I mean, no kidding the 1950s aren't coming back. But that doesn't mean it isn't in the national interest to maintain a viable manufacturing sector, even if it requires government intervention in the marketplace.
I'd point readers to an opinion piece written in this paper in March in the wake of former Intel CEO Andrew Grove's death. In "Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley," Teresa Tritch recounts Grove's concern that the constant push by American companies to "scale up" new technologies in Asia rather than back home ultimately compromises our ability to develop the next new technologies. Grove is quoted as writing, “All of us in business have a responsibility to maintain the industrial base on which we depend and the society whose adaptability — and stability — we may have taken for granted.”
If our nation's corporate executive class continues its Ayn Randian chase after the cheapest possible fulfillment path, eventually the corporate execute class calling the shots will be over in India and China. Of course, the Indians and Chinese would be perfectly happy to see America's policymakers heed Binyamin Appelbaum's advice.
29
The article states there is a viable manufacturing sector. But it will never need the vast numbers of workers to run it. Those are the days that are gone
"All of us in business have a responsibility..."
He could have stopped right there. As far as modern executives are concerned, he might as well have been speaking Martian.
He could have stopped right there. As far as modern executives are concerned, he might as well have been speaking Martian.
1
I am a Technology Fellow and Ph.D. engineer in research at a large manufacturing company. Manufacturing is important because it creates real wealth by creating stuff that people want, and stuff that can be traded. Wealth is important, not just jobs. The dollar would be worthless without manufacturing, and the government would be bankrupt. Moreover, high technology job are created by manufacturing, and those are great jobs.
36
I am a Technology Woman and Licensed electrical Engineer. I don't see human manufacturing jobs being a major mainstay in the USA. We will need a lot of High tech service people to support all the robot manufacturing being done though.
1
Reply to Tim Nolen's comment: I've been involved with retail, wholesale and manufacturing over a 48 year career. I agree with everything you've stated. The core problem is the number of employees it takes to operate today's manufacturing plants are far fewer than in the past. The other day I watched a video showing auto's being manufactured in Telsa's new plant. There were hardly any workers visable. In the late 70's the company I worked for, NJ Communications, installed an intercome system in the GM plant in Linden NJ. GM manufactured their high-end front wheel drive models in the Linden plant, Riviera, Tornado and Eldorado. The employees in the plant resembled a colony of ants, columns of workers on the production line, others checking the parts bins. The plant was so large employees rode bicycles to get around. Watching Tesla's new plant in operation brought home what's really happening in manufacturing. Productivity has increased so much through the use of robots and computer automated design, that the employee count has had a precipitous decline. But as your article points out, engineers, designers, software and hardware employees all have high paying jobs because the Telsa autos are designed and manufactured in the USA. We need to look forward and shift our education system to teach those with the appitude, high tech, high paying jobs. We can't bring back the past, we can look to the future and meet the challenge.
If you don't know it, I suggest that you view the animated video, The Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard. It is brilliant, entertaining, though-provoking, and only 22 minutes long. Available on Youtube.
The basic economic and technical fact is that IF a brand new monster steel mill capable of producing the same volume of steel as a mill in 1985 was built from the ground up, it wouldn't employ 10,000 new workers, it might employ 1000, very likely less. The genie is out of the bottle on technological advances and no one, not Clinton or Trump is able to turn back the clock.
We need to build Ipads, smartphones and apps, not ingots, and nothing will ever change that.
We need to build Ipads, smartphones and apps, not ingots, and nothing will ever change that.
20
Yes but that's not the point. The point is that fewer and fewer people are needed to make our iPads, smartphones, apps, etc. And more and more they are based in countries where as factory workers they are paid much lower than US factory workers once were, and often in unhealthy environments.
Making or growing something is completely different to selling or even servicing something. The productions of goods is not the same as providing services.
In 2016, most reporters and opinion writers don't understand this because for the most part they have never made anything worth making They have never got their hands dirty. They don't understand that men and boys in particular, but also women and girls, like to build things like cars, tractors, buses, trucks, tanks, aeroplanes and ships.
Developing high level skills as an artisan in wood or metal, working with your hands using your hands to make something does something to one's soul. It provides pride. It provides hope. And once upon a time, it provided a good wage.
In 2016, most reporters and opinion writers don't understand this because for the most part they have never made anything worth making They have never got their hands dirty. They don't understand that men and boys in particular, but also women and girls, like to build things like cars, tractors, buses, trucks, tanks, aeroplanes and ships.
Developing high level skills as an artisan in wood or metal, working with your hands using your hands to make something does something to one's soul. It provides pride. It provides hope. And once upon a time, it provided a good wage.
56
Service jobs do not create wealth; they merely shuffle it. Manufacturing, mining and farming jobs create wealth. As we have banished those jobs, largely with environmental regulation, we've created the income gap.
20
The auto mechanic who keeps your car on the road is not merely reshuffling wealth. The input of expertise is a form of manufacturing. Wealth is created for the owner who has a serviceable vehicle for a number of years. It may even have good resale value.
By your argument no one should get an appliance repaired or maintain their homes because no wealth is created.
By your argument no one should get an appliance repaired or maintain their homes because no wealth is created.
15
Environmental regulation? What environmental regulation? There effectively are none in the United States.
What really "banished" those manufacturing jobs was modern electronics. Sure, manufacturing creates wealth, but one doesn't need people (at least not very many) to manufacture that stuff any more. And it's a trend which is not reversible, despite anything which modern-day Luddites think they can do or say about it.
What is really necessary to address the income game is a dramatic rethinking of the entire economy and wealth redistribution system. Moaning for a return to the 1950s, when transistors didn't exist and people and corporations were utterly free to pollute at will, is not going to accomplish anything.
What really "banished" those manufacturing jobs was modern electronics. Sure, manufacturing creates wealth, but one doesn't need people (at least not very many) to manufacture that stuff any more. And it's a trend which is not reversible, despite anything which modern-day Luddites think they can do or say about it.
What is really necessary to address the income game is a dramatic rethinking of the entire economy and wealth redistribution system. Moaning for a return to the 1950s, when transistors didn't exist and people and corporations were utterly free to pollute at will, is not going to accomplish anything.
Oh pleez with the 'environmental regulation' complaints. You want to live in a country where it's okay to pollute the air, dump toxins into the water, waste energy, rape the land and use up precious natural resources, there are plenty of third-world countries where you might feel at home. Here we are civilized.....or try to be.
2
The author seems to lack a basic understanding of the multiple effect. A thousand manufacturing jobs bring in perhaps 5000 other jobs. A 1000 health workers do not bring anything else.
A lot of our (mis)understanding of the offshoring is based on myths. When manufacturing goes off, related product engineering soon follows, then design then research. Soon you have no 'related' skills left. That is what happened with consumer electronics. That is what happened with semiconductors. Steel. White goods. Soon enough it will happen with pharma. I don't think we want to be a nation of service workers giving each other hair cuts, or peer-peer driving around, or shopping for others.
Manufacturing [producing THINGS] is an essential part a nation and its economy. Globalists can say whatever they wish -- some ideas work if you are IN the same country [or state] where people can move around if they want. Off shoring makes that difficult.
A lot of our (mis)understanding of the offshoring is based on myths. When manufacturing goes off, related product engineering soon follows, then design then research. Soon you have no 'related' skills left. That is what happened with consumer electronics. That is what happened with semiconductors. Steel. White goods. Soon enough it will happen with pharma. I don't think we want to be a nation of service workers giving each other hair cuts, or peer-peer driving around, or shopping for others.
Manufacturing [producing THINGS] is an essential part a nation and its economy. Globalists can say whatever they wish -- some ideas work if you are IN the same country [or state] where people can move around if they want. Off shoring makes that difficult.
40
You stated exactly right.
"related product engineering soon follows"
That hasn't happened in over 30 years of off-shoring and counting.
Just sayin'.
Yeah, it could happen tomorrow. Likelihood is that it won't.
That hasn't happened in over 30 years of off-shoring and counting.
Just sayin'.
Yeah, it could happen tomorrow. Likelihood is that it won't.
Why manufacturing?
1. Heavy industry delivered the middle class by dint of labor requirements and unions. Manufacturing jobs pay better.
2. The manufacture of tanks, ships, and planes (sometimes called the "arsenal of democracy") won WWll and the Cold War, and in the main completely secured the United States.
3. It gives people, particularly men, an identity and a sense of achievement. When a person makes something, there is tangible feedback in accomplishment. Some people prefer to work with their hands, and and less with reason or the movement of symbols.
4. We are now moving to a post-industrial age in which robots do the heavy lifting, and also to high value-added, high tech industries which have shorter production runs. There still is a need for workers, but they are knowledge workers such as R&D scientists and engineers, who work to embed intelligence into raw matter, and enhance it using information.
There is a real need for workers with a knowledge of composite materials, metal alloys, polymers, chemical solvents, semiconductor metalloids, etc. Old-line manufacturing industries have technicians, skilled labor, and shop-floor workers who possess this kind of knowledge.
When a corporate raider or LBO king shuts down a manufacturing facility or moves the production line abroad, this positive externality is lost forever.
The best reason for manufacturing is to retain a skilled workforce for the third-wave economy that is coming.
1. Heavy industry delivered the middle class by dint of labor requirements and unions. Manufacturing jobs pay better.
2. The manufacture of tanks, ships, and planes (sometimes called the "arsenal of democracy") won WWll and the Cold War, and in the main completely secured the United States.
3. It gives people, particularly men, an identity and a sense of achievement. When a person makes something, there is tangible feedback in accomplishment. Some people prefer to work with their hands, and and less with reason or the movement of symbols.
4. We are now moving to a post-industrial age in which robots do the heavy lifting, and also to high value-added, high tech industries which have shorter production runs. There still is a need for workers, but they are knowledge workers such as R&D scientists and engineers, who work to embed intelligence into raw matter, and enhance it using information.
There is a real need for workers with a knowledge of composite materials, metal alloys, polymers, chemical solvents, semiconductor metalloids, etc. Old-line manufacturing industries have technicians, skilled labor, and shop-floor workers who possess this kind of knowledge.
When a corporate raider or LBO king shuts down a manufacturing facility or moves the production line abroad, this positive externality is lost forever.
The best reason for manufacturing is to retain a skilled workforce for the third-wave economy that is coming.
32
"This myopic focus on factory jobs distracts from another, simpler way to help working Americans: Improve the conditions of the work they actually do."
Isn't it obvious? The nursing aide, home health care, child care, and fast food jobs aren't the one that the men you are referring to will take. They are "women's" jobs, which is why they are paid so little.
Isn't it obvious? The nursing aide, home health care, child care, and fast food jobs aren't the one that the men you are referring to will take. They are "women's" jobs, which is why they are paid so little.
23
The problem with hyper-focusing on manufacturing and "making" stuff is that in the future there is going to be less things to make. The younger generations are fine with not having a car, streaming music and movies, downloading ebooks, renting, sharing, borrowing, and in general, doing without all the stuff previous generations obsessed over. The just don't care about stuff other than their electronics.
Society is not going to be able to cling to a way of life that is past it's prime.
Society is not going to be able to cling to a way of life that is past it's prime.
13
Right, tell that to billions in Asia and Africa: "See, the millennials in the US do not want to own stuffs and you are already one step ahead of them!"
I sense the unlimited idealism of youth (actual or state-of-mind). Young people today consume every bit as much as other generations...what do you think it takes to build all those iPhones and the related infrastructure. They buy clothes and shoes, eat, drink, live in buildings, use transit, fly, and even buy cars (and at an increasing rate). We may make different things over time, and we certainly don't need everything we make, but believing that a new generation will change everything ignores how it has turned out for all the past generations that thought the same thing.
So you're saying that there is no need for farm equipment, furniture to sit on or eat off, medical instruments for surgeons to operate with, circuit breakers to assure the house doesn't burn down, thermostats, and on and on. Your view of the breadth of manufacturing is pretty narrow
"When will they start to demand that candidates address the lives they actually lead?"
The peasants can't demand anything, Mr. Appelbaum, as you well know. The oligarchs of the Imperium provide Candidate Clinton as next leader-in-name-only puppet President purchased in every gesture by the top 1% to continue the exploitation of all economic inferiors in perpetuity if legislatively possible, and as they control all legislative processes, that prospect is well within reason, the populist balloons of Sanders, Trump, et al. occasionally inflated, deflated as cheap-seat diversions from and by the levers of true power . . .
The peasants can't demand anything, Mr. Appelbaum, as you well know. The oligarchs of the Imperium provide Candidate Clinton as next leader-in-name-only puppet President purchased in every gesture by the top 1% to continue the exploitation of all economic inferiors in perpetuity if legislatively possible, and as they control all legislative processes, that prospect is well within reason, the populist balloons of Sanders, Trump, et al. occasionally inflated, deflated as cheap-seat diversions from and by the levers of true power . . .
24
Awesome sentence construction I salute you, sir.
In the business pages the key is to abstract out every human aspect of manufacturing, especially what it is like to live in a steel mill town. So perhaps I may be pardoned if I edit in some humanity here?
The US public has only reluctantly and sporadically taken an interest in the lives of people living in industrial towns. It was a major achievement when Darryl Zanuck made and released the film _How Green was My Valley_ and won four academy awards for the film, including Best Picture, winning over_Citizen Kane_. _How Green was My Valley_ explores what we normally see only in cold statistics: s community of coal miners in Wales as changes force the sons in a family to look for work elsewhere as jobs are lost. _Citizen Kane_, by contrast, frames out the lives of the people who live in towns where Kane's enterprises operate and shines a spotlight on "the rich inner life" of one powerful figure. People today wonder how a film like _How Green was My Valley_ could have won the 1941 Best Picture award over director Orson Welles' film _Citizen Kane_.
In real life, the "Citizen Kanes" among us are highlighted. Today's opinion columnists "abstract" out the human among workers in industrial towns, citing statistics, and picking a few to interview as "typical" debased relics of a bygone era to shame. The same spotlight magnifies the individuality of the lives of the few, dangling their powerful whims, luxurious palaces, and political machinations to tantalize the public.
The US public has only reluctantly and sporadically taken an interest in the lives of people living in industrial towns. It was a major achievement when Darryl Zanuck made and released the film _How Green was My Valley_ and won four academy awards for the film, including Best Picture, winning over_Citizen Kane_. _How Green was My Valley_ explores what we normally see only in cold statistics: s community of coal miners in Wales as changes force the sons in a family to look for work elsewhere as jobs are lost. _Citizen Kane_, by contrast, frames out the lives of the people who live in towns where Kane's enterprises operate and shines a spotlight on "the rich inner life" of one powerful figure. People today wonder how a film like _How Green was My Valley_ could have won the 1941 Best Picture award over director Orson Welles' film _Citizen Kane_.
In real life, the "Citizen Kanes" among us are highlighted. Today's opinion columnists "abstract" out the human among workers in industrial towns, citing statistics, and picking a few to interview as "typical" debased relics of a bygone era to shame. The same spotlight magnifies the individuality of the lives of the few, dangling their powerful whims, luxurious palaces, and political machinations to tantalize the public.
I think the political obsession with manufacturing is part of the general nostalgia for the time when American was supposedly great.
Some voters' obsession with manufacturing, however, is a yearning for jobs that in the past provided a livable wage for a family, had job security, probably were unionized so created a sense of common purpose and unity -- all of which the service economy strikingly lacks.
Some voters' obsession with manufacturing, however, is a yearning for jobs that in the past provided a livable wage for a family, had job security, probably were unionized so created a sense of common purpose and unity -- all of which the service economy strikingly lacks.
27
Huh? The suggestion is that most workers should do service work ? Helping the sick, serving meals, and selling foreign manufactured goods in retail stores? And we should just let Germany, Japan, Korea, etc. out-innovate us in the absolutely vital area of manufacturing? We're talking the enormous and exciting challenges of clean, sustainable 21st century manufacturing of amazingly sophisticated products, not 20th century smokestack industries. The government has a vital role in providing R&D stimulus and helping start-up companies through the 'Valley of Death' part of the innovation-to-market process. Politicians are rightly 'obsessed' with manufacturing in this modern sense, and keeping the U.S. technologically competitive.
68
Thank you. You stated what should be obvious, but for some reason, some economists just can't seem to get their head around it. Once you work in manufacturing, construction or a laboring job, you immediately understand how innovation, discovery and invention work.
I don't think he is saying that most workers should do service work, he is saying that most workers do service work. Not all service work is flipping burgers. The designers and programmers at Apple are far better off than the Chinese who put iPhones together. The innovation is in the design of the phone not the components, which have been around for years (Apple charges a huge markup for those components because people like the design/software).
There is no doubt that the US dominates in software. We would be better off keeping this edge than trying to bring those factories back from China.
There is no doubt that the US dominates in software. We would be better off keeping this edge than trying to bring those factories back from China.
2
Germany, Japan and Korea are facing the same need for service workers that we are. It's not that most workers "should" do service work. It's that the greater need is for service workers and not production workers. Even now, manufacturers probably employ more 'service' workers (administrators, clerks, sales workers, accountants, etc) than workers directly involved in manufacturing. And these workers are being squeezed to do more work at lower wages. The point is, we are already a service economy. The professional economists and financiers just haven't acknowledge this yet. They are still re-arranging the deck chairs.
1
Minimum Wage increases are eroded immediately by increases in the Costs of rent, and should be tied to Inflation.
Additionally, and perhaps more effectively, the increases should be coordinated with this in mind, and a Price Freeze established on rent for some Period, to let Americans save some of their income for an emergency.
Or, we could all unionize and tell the landed class we want to pay even less than that. Smartphones and a website could make that happen pretty easy.
Americans will fight back if they see a way to do it. Maybe avoid that by charging a fair rent in the first place.
Additionally, and perhaps more effectively, the increases should be coordinated with this in mind, and a Price Freeze established on rent for some Period, to let Americans save some of their income for an emergency.
Or, we could all unionize and tell the landed class we want to pay even less than that. Smartphones and a website could make that happen pretty easy.
Americans will fight back if they see a way to do it. Maybe avoid that by charging a fair rent in the first place.
9
One of these days, there will be so many families/generations packed into houses owned by one relative or another that filthy rich mega-landlords will see their rents collapse due to 30% occupancy rates....and they will deserve every loss. Unfortunately, the losses are tax deductible. How galling and insulting that is for the rest of us ordinary citizens!
How can we thrive in just a service economy? We can't get rich giving each other haircuts. Somebody has to make things. Appelbaum asserts we're making more now than ever. That may be true, but it's hard to believe. Some examples would be nice! Perhaps the value in constant dollars has gone up, but our consumption of manufactured goods has surely gone up much more than that. Try to find an American made consumer durable product at any store. Wealthy countries such as Germany and Japan make high-value consumer goods. Why shouldn't we? In the 1950s, and even in the 30s, before the war devastation in Europe, almost everything was made in USA. Now clothing, shoes, furniture, light bulbs, TVs, copiers, computers and smartphones are all imported. Who should I trust - this article or my lying eyes?
55
The problem is pretty bad. A company set up shop in Illinois to build passenger railroad cars. The US practically invented the railroad and we had been building railroad cars for nearly 160 years when we virtually stopped. After several years, the train car company couldn't even build a prototype that met the FRA crashworthiness standards. I would submit that the inability to manufacture a very simple product that has been around for over a hundred years this says something very significant about our national security.
1
German workers have strong unions. Their representatives sit at the decision table. They are able to pay good wages, provide health care and four weeks paid vacations to employees. Americans have no idea how much we are exploited.
Does one really need to be rich? That's the problem, greed for something that's not even worth having, exorbitant wealth.
I'm sorry. I think the US should be manufacturing many more products of the highest quality. We should also be training kids for the jobs that are available, today, and paying average workers far more than they are currently paid--Executives, FAR LESS. Nobody should have to work more than one job, unless they want to do it.
40
I so wished the writer had decided to do a better job analyzing than merely throwing out statements. Most [of us] recognize the Manufacturing-Jobs-ruse and its appeal to those whose parents had them; or had them years ago or in the final throes of losing them. We also know "manufacturing jobs" that is, NON service sector, jobs will never come back to U.S. shores.
It isn't just about automation. Virtually every item I purchase- from Bobby Pins, Shoe Laces, Erasers, Pillows, plastic bottle dispensers are made in some factory by someone else. Alas- "focusing" on Service Sector Jobs- to what end? Service Sector jobs won't push people out of poverty- won't even cover modest rent in most places. so what is the focus supposed to be [about]?
It isn't just about automation. Virtually every item I purchase- from Bobby Pins, Shoe Laces, Erasers, Pillows, plastic bottle dispensers are made in some factory by someone else. Alas- "focusing" on Service Sector Jobs- to what end? Service Sector jobs won't push people out of poverty- won't even cover modest rent in most places. so what is the focus supposed to be [about]?
10
The real question, however, could be "Why?" Why should we accept that Service Sector jobs will not push people out of poverty?
1
You have just make a strong case for tariffs in my opinion.
As Steve Jobs said "Those jobs are not coming back" and a business failure like Donald Trump (as more comes out about how terrible he really is at "business" calling him a failure is accurate) is not going to change that.
14
Losing manufacturing, or rather sacrificing them for cheap imported products is not just losing blue collar jobs populated by high school drop outs and no minds who labor all day long at a machine. This article demeans the labor and skill of laborers. It demeans the artistry and experience of workers who use their hands as well as their minds.
De-industrialization is not an answer to more jobs. Neither are more service jobs. We need industry, research and development for new manufacturing jobs and we also must maintain the skills and institutional knowledge of manufacturing. Not building hard and durable goods here in the U.S. is an invitation to economic and social disaster. That includes building the automated and computerized machines of electronic technology too.
There is great ignorance about what manufacturing encompasses and why we can't just casually throw away one of the prime economic engines of our country.
Granted we have robots and automation. We also have super skilled trades men and women who can do things with their hands that machines can never do.
Remember too that it is people who build and set up those machines and repair them when they fail.
There are many vibrant manufacturing business that demand highly skilled and capable labor. Throwing it all away for more service jobs jeopardizes national security and our social fabric as well. Our nation needs manufacturing to survive and prosper.
De-industrialization is not an answer to more jobs. Neither are more service jobs. We need industry, research and development for new manufacturing jobs and we also must maintain the skills and institutional knowledge of manufacturing. Not building hard and durable goods here in the U.S. is an invitation to economic and social disaster. That includes building the automated and computerized machines of electronic technology too.
There is great ignorance about what manufacturing encompasses and why we can't just casually throw away one of the prime economic engines of our country.
Granted we have robots and automation. We also have super skilled trades men and women who can do things with their hands that machines can never do.
Remember too that it is people who build and set up those machines and repair them when they fail.
There are many vibrant manufacturing business that demand highly skilled and capable labor. Throwing it all away for more service jobs jeopardizes national security and our social fabric as well. Our nation needs manufacturing to survive and prosper.
35
The article demeans no labor or laborer. It simply tells it like it is. The truth is that service jobs are what we need and will need more of. Even now our 'manufacturing' economy is heavily service-orientated, using administrative assistants, clerks, IT staff, accountants, marketing staff, etc. We will always need some manufacturing, and some factory jobs. And these should be well paid. But we'll never need the number that we once had, and it's past time for policy-makers to recognize this.
Why make or build anything when you can wait tables or cut people's hair or polish shoes for a living?
I'm a vegetarian and I do my own cooking. Moreover, my barber died so I decided to cut my own hair. The latter needs work, but I'll get there.
As for polished shoes, I never wear them, anymore.
Point being, services are nice to have but few of them are essential.
Doctors, you ask?
I haven't seen one nor taken a pill of any kind in years. Never go to dentists, either.
Makes me sound like an ignoramus, doesn't it?
Fact is, I'm neither poor nor stupid nor uneducated.
Deal with it...
Service jobs are not going to carry the country, long term, and you can take that to the bank. But, I'm old, so the long term is not really my problem.
You want to be a waiter?
A life of debt and servitude is yours for the asking. Go for it...
I'm a vegetarian and I do my own cooking. Moreover, my barber died so I decided to cut my own hair. The latter needs work, but I'll get there.
As for polished shoes, I never wear them, anymore.
Point being, services are nice to have but few of them are essential.
Doctors, you ask?
I haven't seen one nor taken a pill of any kind in years. Never go to dentists, either.
Makes me sound like an ignoramus, doesn't it?
Fact is, I'm neither poor nor stupid nor uneducated.
Deal with it...
Service jobs are not going to carry the country, long term, and you can take that to the bank. But, I'm old, so the long term is not really my problem.
You want to be a waiter?
A life of debt and servitude is yours for the asking. Go for it...
23
Just as you try to live without recourse to service industries, some of us are trying to minimize our use of 'stuff,' manufactured stuff. See The Story of Stuff, the animated video by Annie Leonard.
Sure. Obviously people just love delivering pizza, flipping burgers, or cleaning up grandpa's poop for minimum wage. It's the future!
53
Silliest proposal yet. Only thing worse is claiming that raising the minimum wage will somehow change things.
1
What idiocy. Manufacturing means that you are producing an actual product. Products have intrinsic and objective value. Products require both thought and creativity, along with the material resources and mechanization to make them a reality. Every stage of the process adds value and requires mental and/or physical labor, which creates jobs and creates wealth and economic growth in the form of paychecks. Without manufacturing, a modern society is lost. Service economies come and go. Manufacturing lives on.
23
Wake up, Paul. We are no longer a manufacturing nation. Most goods are produced, cheaply and shoddily, overseas in countries that have even weaker protection of workers and the environment that we do.
Your own data shows Clinton offers nothing. You write "Many home health aides live close to the poverty line: Average annual wages were just $22,870 last year." but her phased in over many years $12/hour *40 hours *52 weeks = $24,960.
You misstate labor history, the end of child labor, 40 hour work week, a host of other rights, were legislated, not negotiated. Federal regulators are, were the primary advocates of workers. Too bad Obama allowed the NLRB to sit lifeless and unoccupied for most of his terms. Maybe if he took a stand against blocked NLRB appointments earlier, he wouldn't have his Supreme Court nominee so disrespectfully discarded now.
It was not a backlog of innovations or WWII devastation which gave the US better wages. Labor gained power and momentum, despite a long war of attrition, even after 1948's devastatingly effective Taft-Hartley Act.
Business escapes the Fair Labor Standards Act by making everyone exempt, you're a professional now or a manager.
Rising wages coincided with low immigration, and immigrant workers were able to strike because they weren't on work visas, to be deported if unemployed. Democrats readily expand exploitation of immigrants in any grand bargain of a new bill.
Please too look up how German factory owners are prevented from closing and moving.
Huge violent battles between labor and business created unions. Workers fought and won. Fearing outright Communism, the government took their side.
You misstate labor history, the end of child labor, 40 hour work week, a host of other rights, were legislated, not negotiated. Federal regulators are, were the primary advocates of workers. Too bad Obama allowed the NLRB to sit lifeless and unoccupied for most of his terms. Maybe if he took a stand against blocked NLRB appointments earlier, he wouldn't have his Supreme Court nominee so disrespectfully discarded now.
It was not a backlog of innovations or WWII devastation which gave the US better wages. Labor gained power and momentum, despite a long war of attrition, even after 1948's devastatingly effective Taft-Hartley Act.
Business escapes the Fair Labor Standards Act by making everyone exempt, you're a professional now or a manager.
Rising wages coincided with low immigration, and immigrant workers were able to strike because they weren't on work visas, to be deported if unemployed. Democrats readily expand exploitation of immigrants in any grand bargain of a new bill.
Please too look up how German factory owners are prevented from closing and moving.
Huge violent battles between labor and business created unions. Workers fought and won. Fearing outright Communism, the government took their side.
13
"...They are now caregivers, retail workers and customer-service representatives...
"...Summers estimates that by midcentury, one-third of men in their prime working years, between the ages of 25 and 54, will not be working...
"...Instead of white men who make stuff, the group is increasingly made up of minority women who serve people...
You gotta be kidding me...Any editor anywhere, who could fog a mirror or fall head-first onto a keyboard, would've killed this...
Yet - you folks FEATURE this...
Of course - the pièce de résistance...'
"...there can be no revival of American manufacturing, because there has been no collapse...
"...Summers estimates that by midcentury, one-third of men in their prime working years, between the ages of 25 and 54, will not be working...
"...Instead of white men who make stuff, the group is increasingly made up of minority women who serve people...
You gotta be kidding me...Any editor anywhere, who could fog a mirror or fall head-first onto a keyboard, would've killed this...
Yet - you folks FEATURE this...
Of course - the pièce de résistance...'
"...there can be no revival of American manufacturing, because there has been no collapse...
11
The issue that has been sort of addressed in the NYTIME times is can A American have a good life while having a bad job. Our economy is so efficient we need less and less labor. We are at the point people are buying jobs and many are abandoned as impovershished. Ultimately our economic systems goal rather than profit based must be community based. This idea need not eliminate the profit motive but community must come before profit.
5
No, Binyamin. You should learn more about people who (apparently) live very different lives from you, whom you're asking to take $8/hour service industry jobs, when they can remember working in the manufacturing or skilled labor sector for $20/hour and more. Or, if they aren't old enough to recall, can at least see the obvious pay differentials between the two labor markets.
And then you should think about that.
And then you should think about that.
27
He is not asking anyone to take an $8/hour job. He knows that service sector jobs need to be compensated at a much higher level, to provide a living wage.
This is the kind of "open minded thinking" that we don't see enough of.
I would add to what was written that when people are "earning" a living wage, then there will be a resurgence of what are called the arts and crafts. Namely the small builder of fine furniture etc, the fine artists instead of the cheap prints, the house with the fine finishes, etc. I think you know where I'm going. The production of the fine product, the fine food, local business that has what we want and it's not Walmart, the things that we all like but find unavailable.
I would add to what was written that when people are "earning" a living wage, then there will be a resurgence of what are called the arts and crafts. Namely the small builder of fine furniture etc, the fine artists instead of the cheap prints, the house with the fine finishes, etc. I think you know where I'm going. The production of the fine product, the fine food, local business that has what we want and it's not Walmart, the things that we all like but find unavailable.
3
But who could afford the find hand crafted items, when 90% of us are working at minimum wage jobs
Was Obama wrong to save General Motors, by helping that company shift to a more feasible business model?
According to Binyamin Appelbaum, Obama should have let the company go under and tell the assembly line workers to be happy changing sheets at nearby hotels. When I was at Microsoft as a software engineer, I worked on a virtual assembly line to manufacture computer code that would create a marketable product. Does Mr. Appelbaum also think that the government should be apathetic if the software manufacturing industry would also begin to falter?
It is the duty of responsible political representative to preserve jobs, and not to let entire sectors wither and die. Binyamin’s attitude, that an industry deserves to die, is similar to the way that Republicans reacted to the market crash of 1929 – they treated the economy like a car that deserved to be stuck in a ditch. Luckily for us, a visionary president like Franklin Roosevelt realized that creating and preserving jobs would be essential for the survival of the country.
A country that cannot manufacture products but can only perform service jobs, is destine to have the economy of third-world counties, who are ultimate driven and controlled by the wealth of exterior countries which can in fact create and manufacture marketable products. I have to wonder what is wrong with the NY Times that they would keep such a naive economic analyst on as a columnist. This article would not even cut it at a college newspaper.
According to Binyamin Appelbaum, Obama should have let the company go under and tell the assembly line workers to be happy changing sheets at nearby hotels. When I was at Microsoft as a software engineer, I worked on a virtual assembly line to manufacture computer code that would create a marketable product. Does Mr. Appelbaum also think that the government should be apathetic if the software manufacturing industry would also begin to falter?
It is the duty of responsible political representative to preserve jobs, and not to let entire sectors wither and die. Binyamin’s attitude, that an industry deserves to die, is similar to the way that Republicans reacted to the market crash of 1929 – they treated the economy like a car that deserved to be stuck in a ditch. Luckily for us, a visionary president like Franklin Roosevelt realized that creating and preserving jobs would be essential for the survival of the country.
A country that cannot manufacture products but can only perform service jobs, is destine to have the economy of third-world counties, who are ultimate driven and controlled by the wealth of exterior countries which can in fact create and manufacture marketable products. I have to wonder what is wrong with the NY Times that they would keep such a naive economic analyst on as a columnist. This article would not even cut it at a college newspaper.
27
Huh? You can only sell so much life insurance and waitress so much, as restaurants can only hire so many workers.
There needs to be jobs that pay for need to buy Insurance and food out. Do you not get that there can't be a whole economy based only on low paying services?
There needs to be jobs that pay for need to buy Insurance and food out. Do you not get that there can't be a whole economy based only on low paying services?
21
I don't think the author understands reality. We cannot have a healthy economy long term predicated service jobs and financial sector work. Much of that can *also* be outsourced. We must compete and produce on many levels and manufacturing is very important. In the tech world you also learn when you *make* things. It is not just a high level design you ship off to a low wage country who cannot then replicate your advance. The people producing learn, see how to do things better, and take control of the field. We have lost control of many highly profitable areas by sending overseas to maximize short term profit. Then companies collapse when they no longer lead. Manufacturing must be promoted more for our children to have a good future. Even if they will not be in huge GM style assembly lines from the 50s it still plays a vital role. A nation of burger flippers, nurses, and stock brokers is not healthy.
53
You have hit the nail on the head. Good job.
5
If you don't make something, you aren't creating wealth, you're just moving money around. Brilliant Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, felt you lose the learning exponential that engineers accumulate if our manufacturing is decimated and given away. When engineering problems occur you can't wait 12 hours to be resolved ... becomes expensive. Design work would obviously follow the manufacturing, so you lose even that ! We have millions of unskilled people arriving into the US which gets added to the unemployment mix of millions of Americans. Manufacturing is vital to keep us strong and independent ... !
12
The reason is that journalists and by extension politicians do not have a clue as to where the jobs are even in almost full employment they do not know where the careers of this century are.
10
A more forward thinking politician would stop focusing on the now and consider the future instead. The sooner we can learn to stop worrying and love automation the sooner we can better prepare for a new economy where jobs as we know it are mostly performed by robots. This isn't a bad thing if handled correctly, but if continued with the drum beat of tunnel vision group think we are going to find ourselves in a very bad position 10-15 years down the road.
I've said it in the past and will continue to say it; let's focus on eliminating all modern jobs as possible with automation and in turn push people towards education - PhDs, ideally second PhDs so we get particular sub-specialties. Basic minimum income is pretty easy to do on paper while avoiding overtly taxing the rich and add some initial strings attached to that individuals go more income if they continue on with their education, this would gently nudge individuals towards such programs. Now..of course things need to be reformed on the education side as well however character limits is certainly going to prevent me going into detail with that here.
Nonetheless, both candidates are misguided to focus on the now. Instead it would be wise to focus 10 years out. We put too much emphasis on work just for the purpose of giving people something to do-, we could eliminate the inefficiencies of work while still giving people stuff to do - like specialize in a sub-interest with dual PhDs that keeps them busy and out of trouble.
I've said it in the past and will continue to say it; let's focus on eliminating all modern jobs as possible with automation and in turn push people towards education - PhDs, ideally second PhDs so we get particular sub-specialties. Basic minimum income is pretty easy to do on paper while avoiding overtly taxing the rich and add some initial strings attached to that individuals go more income if they continue on with their education, this would gently nudge individuals towards such programs. Now..of course things need to be reformed on the education side as well however character limits is certainly going to prevent me going into detail with that here.
Nonetheless, both candidates are misguided to focus on the now. Instead it would be wise to focus 10 years out. We put too much emphasis on work just for the purpose of giving people something to do-, we could eliminate the inefficiencies of work while still giving people stuff to do - like specialize in a sub-interest with dual PhDs that keeps them busy and out of trouble.
2
So, given the cost of student loans... How will the double
Although manufacturing may "come back" manufacturing jobs won't, but Mr. Appelbaum's hope that the service industries will replace them reminds me of the apocryphal story about the town that survived the Great Depression because everyone took in each others washing.
7
The "story" is based on the Irish potato famine, Nelson. A little before your historical sensibility.
4
Making things allows us develop as a human race, it provides necessary practice in trial, error and success with an accompanying growth in thinking, serving not so much. Nurse, social worker, guidance counselor and Including myself as a teacher, we are all servants. If my technical school students don't have opportunities to produce what have we accomplished? Lets try to employ the producers or we will be eating our own tail.
6
Let's face it, there are some people who are never going to be educated or skilled enough to anything but menial work -- and we need them to do so. And because we need them, we owe them a living wage, which we are not paying them. To do so involves income redistribution, which is a dirty word to Republicans, who are shortsighted enough not to realize that by providing purchasing power to a large number of people ultimately redounds to everyone's advantage.
18
You earn what you deserve, not what the politically correct government in power decides to give you free just to get your vote for the next election.
4
@Mainlaw - Where is it written that we "owe" a person, who ignored all the free education and opportunity in this country, a living wage? You have it backwards. We owe them the chance and opportunity to succeed. It is up to the individual to grab it and exploit the opportunity for their own benefit. Create value....people will gladly pay you for it.
Socialism is a flawed concept that creates dependence and a downward spiral of expectations. It sounds wonderful and appeals to our best instincts. It just doesn't work on scale. How many experiments do you need to see before this takes hold?
Socialism is a flawed concept that creates dependence and a downward spiral of expectations. It sounds wonderful and appeals to our best instincts. It just doesn't work on scale. How many experiments do you need to see before this takes hold?
5
It's a bit stunning to read this tripe and then pull up the top five economic nations (US, Japan, Germany, China, S. Korea) of the world. It is easily seen that manufacturing is the backbone of these countries.
Walmart, Starbucks, Auto Malls and Macy's are what come after the manufacturing jobs produce good sustainable wages. Also, manufacturing facilities are not solely about the lathe, furnace or welding rod. They are about the production engineering, marketing, HR, Finance and sales jobs that drive the engine. They are also about the support services and trickle down that follow (raw materials, cleaning, packaging, shipping).
The PF Changs of the world certainly don't come before manufacturing, they come as a result.
Walmart, Starbucks, Auto Malls and Macy's are what come after the manufacturing jobs produce good sustainable wages. Also, manufacturing facilities are not solely about the lathe, furnace or welding rod. They are about the production engineering, marketing, HR, Finance and sales jobs that drive the engine. They are also about the support services and trickle down that follow (raw materials, cleaning, packaging, shipping).
The PF Changs of the world certainly don't come before manufacturing, they come as a result.
35
We ay be buying products with familiar American brand-names, but most are no longer manufactured here. They come from overseas factories.
I can't tell you often I hear that "you don't need a four-year degree" and folks (with degrees) making huge efforts to get high school grads into manufacturing. Sad. They need to read this and get themselves up to date. John Kay recently wrote on the politics of "manufacturing fetishism" http://www.johnkay.com/2016/08/29/the-economics-and-politics-of-manufact...
1
Americans still don't know what the phrase "service sector" means. It's pretty much any private-sector job that is NOT manufacturing, mining (or other extraction), or farming. The vast majority of us have service sector jobs, whether you're making $10/hr as a cashier or $100K per year as a software developer.
Secondly, the U.S. is still a top manufacturer in the world, second only to China, which only surpassed us a few years ago. Technological advances have taken many more American manufacturing jobs than any trade deals. That's not something we can reverse, nor should we want to.
Workers need to adapt, and apparently so do politicians who need to quit lying to Americans about what happened to the factories and jobs and why they're never coming back.
Secondly, the U.S. is still a top manufacturer in the world, second only to China, which only surpassed us a few years ago. Technological advances have taken many more American manufacturing jobs than any trade deals. That's not something we can reverse, nor should we want to.
Workers need to adapt, and apparently so do politicians who need to quit lying to Americans about what happened to the factories and jobs and why they're never coming back.
8
Binyamin Applebaum obviously knows very little about working in the "Service Industry". 90% of the service jobs are minimum wage or slightly higher; but not living wages. Why focus on manufacturing jobs, simple that's where the money is for workers. I wonder if Binyamin Applebaum's writing job pays a minimum wage?
10
The manufacturing jobs are mostly overseas, Bill. And trust me, those factory workers in China, Honduras, Bangladesh, are not making great wages.
Make America's Blacksmiths Great Again! Of course putting money into education (so that Americans can do other things) is something Republicans have fought for years.
4
Manufacturing jobs USED TO pay more than service jobs, when those jobs were union jobs (and before the advent, really, of the "service economy"). Is this vast unionization what the Republicans have in mind? Or instead will American factory workers be willing to compete to make consumer products as cheaply as they are made overseas? Or maybe they favor a protected economy, where American manufactured goods cost many times what their imported counterparts do? I don't see how this will work, or how the Republicans think this will work.
3
A nation that loses it's ability and facilities for manufacturing is a nation that will not be able to sustain or protect itself in time of war or economic embargo. We no longer have the domestic "supply chain ecosystem" to produce most of the high tech goods that we so casually and naively take for granted.
9
How are we supposed to service anything when we don't know how it's made. Do we call up china to come fix everything for us as well ? Will we lose ou innovative spirit altogether ?
How will we ever get to mars if we can only serve cocktails ?
How will we ever get to mars if we can only serve cocktails ?
7
Schools have to be updated and curriculum made more rigorous so that students are prepared for the new world they live in. The displaced unemployed need to be reminded how dangerous many of the jobs they pine for were.
1
Manufacturing and exports add money into our economy and are thus exponentially more important than service sector jobs which just recirculate money.
5
You do not eat a service. A service moves cash from one hand to other. If the first hand does not create real wealth, at some point some is left with less, in particular, payments to the landfords: landdords, doc. lawyer, cpa and the rest.
4
1. A Michigan manufacturing job used to enable the average employee to spend enough to support 4 jobs in other businesses. Where I live, the date that a certain large furniture manufacturer used to pay annual employee bonuses was a huge day in the local retail and hospitality economy, and those businesses used to plan on it -- but most of those jobs are in maquiladora plants now.
2. For national security purposes, there are some things the US needs to be able to manufacture on territory it controls: some computers and related devices; rocket engines; munitions; radar and other sensors; devices used for communications and control; aircraft; submarines; and probably others.
2. For national security purposes, there are some things the US needs to be able to manufacture on territory it controls: some computers and related devices; rocket engines; munitions; radar and other sensors; devices used for communications and control; aircraft; submarines; and probably others.
9
They're trying to appeal to the uneducated white men who want Donald for president. Those are the only jobs they have prepared themselves for.
2
You have a very big heart. Keep speaking truth to power.
Because Americans think serving another human being is demeaning, and interacting with a machine is better.
3
There was an article not so long ago , I believe I read it here in the Times. How every 4 years candidates from both side go too and use Youngstown , Ohio as a reminder of how bad things are. This year in particular NAFTA has been singled out as one of the reasons for its demise. The article also pointed out correctly, that the hardship that fell upon Youngstown started in the late 70's and picked up steam and to this day remains the poster city of all that's gone wrong with manufacturing in this country. I'm not so sure that we could single out any one bad trade policy for the damage that has been done. It started way before that. The world caught up and real competition happened. As a business owner and a consumer I won't go as far as saying that everything that's been shipped and manufactured over seas are inferior to American manufacturing. But there are a few , tires and steel products comes to mind and whole lot of things that were once made here in abundance but has now been reduced to a few all the way to none. Cheaper is not always better. Safety for the people who make it all the way to the people who use these type of products need to make a choice a whole lot of choices. It will never be the 50's again but there needs to be a way to stop that bleeding.
6
While "cheaper is not always better" is true of products, the financial markets apparently belieive that cheaper labor is always better. Therein lies the problem.
I belong to a family of manufacturers. Our family has owned a manufacturing company for 3 generations in the Detroit area. I have tremendous respect for the industry, the hard work, and the jobs that are done "on the line."
But lets be honest. Why is it given so much attention?
Because it is perceived to be men's work.
Period.
We respect factory work not just more than service work (which is perceived to be women's work). We respect factory work more than perceived women's work that requires a GRADUATE LEVEL education. We respect it more than we respect teachers, social workers, name a profession that women dominate. We respect manufacturing more than it.
But lets be honest. Why is it given so much attention?
Because it is perceived to be men's work.
Period.
We respect factory work not just more than service work (which is perceived to be women's work). We respect factory work more than perceived women's work that requires a GRADUATE LEVEL education. We respect it more than we respect teachers, social workers, name a profession that women dominate. We respect manufacturing more than it.
16
The usual accounts of the collapse of US manufacturing (and yes, both in terms of share of GDP and share of employment, it has been a collapse) do not account for the fact that several advanced nations, such as Germany (and the central European countries that benefitted from German investment), South Korea and Japan, have not experienced the same, in spite of globalization and automation, but have remained relatively stable in the past 20 years. So it cannot be just automation and globalization, as those countries prove that it was possible for a rich, advanced, manufacturing nation to see its industry and its manufacturing workers benefit from those.
It is, however, probably true that it is too late to reverse the trend. Too much has been lost; the investments, in capital, human capital, infrastructure etc. would no longer be worth the cost.
But analyzing the reasons for that divergence could not only explain the collapse of the US manufacturing sector in hindsight, but also serve as a lesson as to how to move forward with the jobs the US does have - from strong unions, social and economic policies, fiscal policy, to technical education.
The problem with basing an economy on service jobs is that it is hard to envision it as anything else but a Ponzi scheme, with people serving people earning more serving people earning more serving people earning more... from what? From people earning much, much less than the first in the chain?
It is, however, probably true that it is too late to reverse the trend. Too much has been lost; the investments, in capital, human capital, infrastructure etc. would no longer be worth the cost.
But analyzing the reasons for that divergence could not only explain the collapse of the US manufacturing sector in hindsight, but also serve as a lesson as to how to move forward with the jobs the US does have - from strong unions, social and economic policies, fiscal policy, to technical education.
The problem with basing an economy on service jobs is that it is hard to envision it as anything else but a Ponzi scheme, with people serving people earning more serving people earning more serving people earning more... from what? From people earning much, much less than the first in the chain?
7
The real Ponzi scheme is the current American economy, passer-by.
It's usually only in reader comments that we get any comparisons at all on how other countries manage to maintain their working/middle class. support unions, despite globalization and tech--- and have higher min wage laws, and better financed training and education systems.
This is all left out of the article----and left out of our political campaigns. Has to be that way in a corporate financed political system. Well, at least we have reader comments, now, thanks to the internet.
This is all left out of the article----and left out of our political campaigns. Has to be that way in a corporate financed political system. Well, at least we have reader comments, now, thanks to the internet.
I'm still waiting to see how Trump intends to return manufacturing jobs to the US.
Will he remove the minimum wage, and let it float down to the minimum wage current in competing countries? Or will he, in his improvement of taxes for corporations (and real estate companies) eliminate taxes for offshore profits?
Will he remove the minimum wage, and let it float down to the minimum wage current in competing countries? Or will he, in his improvement of taxes for corporations (and real estate companies) eliminate taxes for offshore profits?
4
How about re-negotiate trade deals?
The author is correct. What matters to the worker is not how much he or she produces, but how much, in money, he or she receives in the form of wages.
That's because the worker doesn't receive what he or she produced or what he or she "deserved" but a given quantity of money, determined in a contract.
This becomes more evident by the fact how each party calculates the productivity of labor: the worker calculates his or her productivity by the relation of how much he or she works (in hours, days etc.) and the purchase power of his or her salary. What matters for the work is not the quantity of money by itself, but what he or she can buy. For the employer, it's a completely different calculation: it's the wage in relation to total investment (unit of labor per unit of capital, wage in relation to the prices of production).
That's why there's no "natural wage", or "living wage". What determines wages etc. is class struggle, the political clash between the working class and the capitalist class. The tendency is this: in boom times, working rights and wages tend to go up; in crisis times, they tend to go down. Not because of some law of nature, but because in booms the working class has more bargaining power because unemployment is lower or inexistent; in crisis times high unemployment implodes the unions, which dash the bargaining power of the working class.
That's because the worker doesn't receive what he or she produced or what he or she "deserved" but a given quantity of money, determined in a contract.
This becomes more evident by the fact how each party calculates the productivity of labor: the worker calculates his or her productivity by the relation of how much he or she works (in hours, days etc.) and the purchase power of his or her salary. What matters for the work is not the quantity of money by itself, but what he or she can buy. For the employer, it's a completely different calculation: it's the wage in relation to total investment (unit of labor per unit of capital, wage in relation to the prices of production).
That's why there's no "natural wage", or "living wage". What determines wages etc. is class struggle, the political clash between the working class and the capitalist class. The tendency is this: in boom times, working rights and wages tend to go up; in crisis times, they tend to go down. Not because of some law of nature, but because in booms the working class has more bargaining power because unemployment is lower or inexistent; in crisis times high unemployment implodes the unions, which dash the bargaining power of the working class.
3
I think we should now recognize that the “work” an individual performs should no longer be the only measure for his well-being. As abhorrent as it probably is to many, the simple fact is that people are not needed to produce the goods and services that the world’s population consumes and some other wealth distribution method is necessary.
Existing economic mechanisms reward those who labor or invest capital in goods and services producing activities. The inequality of wealth and incomes reflects the diminished requirement for traditional “workers”.
The dilemma is that as the productive capacity of the world increases dramatically and the number of humans needed to achieve this diminishes, reliance on those working cannot substitute for those who might have been able to purchase goods in the past.
Moreover, taxation regimes favor those with capital to invest but punish those whose well-beings are threatened. The workers who are displaced when a factory substitutes automated machinery for them are usually not able to “retrain” to become lawyers, doctors, accountants, or computer programmers!
Many say that “service jobs” are the answer, but these do not produce the goods necessary for living.
Again, as abhorrent as the suggestion will be to many, the products that the “humanless” factories produce may well have to be distributed freely to those who need them, but whose jobs have been eliminated.
Existing economic mechanisms reward those who labor or invest capital in goods and services producing activities. The inequality of wealth and incomes reflects the diminished requirement for traditional “workers”.
The dilemma is that as the productive capacity of the world increases dramatically and the number of humans needed to achieve this diminishes, reliance on those working cannot substitute for those who might have been able to purchase goods in the past.
Moreover, taxation regimes favor those with capital to invest but punish those whose well-beings are threatened. The workers who are displaced when a factory substitutes automated machinery for them are usually not able to “retrain” to become lawyers, doctors, accountants, or computer programmers!
Many say that “service jobs” are the answer, but these do not produce the goods necessary for living.
Again, as abhorrent as the suggestion will be to many, the products that the “humanless” factories produce may well have to be distributed freely to those who need them, but whose jobs have been eliminated.
7
Lets say yes to ideas like this ,but it will be a hard sell yet for at least the next two generations in USA
2
Nothing abhorrent about the only reasonable way to deal with the corporations' goal of creating a poor serf caste leeched by the rich one.
Universal basic income would do this, and strong taxes and a hard 12:1 ratio for highest-executive:lowest-worker pay would fund that. Come on, Congress, hop to.
Universal basic income would do this, and strong taxes and a hard 12:1 ratio for highest-executive:lowest-worker pay would fund that. Come on, Congress, hop to.
3
Please look at The Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard.
Many manufacturing jobs were and still are held by people with no education beyond high school. These are not 'professional' jobs but vocations jobs -little or no education required.
The high cost of union wages is still to blame for the loss of many manufacturing jobs - repetitive physical movements or actions can be done anywhere by humans or robots - Asia has proven anyone can do the same jobs Americans used to do.
Owners of American based companies will outsource their labor to save money so they can make a profit - business is not a charity and Americans want cheap goods even it they are democrats.
Mental power - writing code, tech jobs, healthcare industry, etc now that is where the money & skill level is but the humans must have an education to do these jobs.
We need infrastructure built - that is hard physical labor and not all will be able to do that work. So the voters must be realistic - they might have to pick crops or work in construction or wait tables or sell shoes or sell fast food if they don't have the skill set for the new job market.
Americans feel they are entitled to jobs - and politicians are using this to get your vote.
The high cost of union wages is still to blame for the loss of many manufacturing jobs - repetitive physical movements or actions can be done anywhere by humans or robots - Asia has proven anyone can do the same jobs Americans used to do.
Owners of American based companies will outsource their labor to save money so they can make a profit - business is not a charity and Americans want cheap goods even it they are democrats.
Mental power - writing code, tech jobs, healthcare industry, etc now that is where the money & skill level is but the humans must have an education to do these jobs.
We need infrastructure built - that is hard physical labor and not all will be able to do that work. So the voters must be realistic - they might have to pick crops or work in construction or wait tables or sell shoes or sell fast food if they don't have the skill set for the new job market.
Americans feel they are entitled to jobs - and politicians are using this to get your vote.
3
The reality is that Union Jobs are not responsible for the closure of American Businesses. In the 1960's when we had strong unions, the typical CEO made 20 times what the CEO's union workers made. Today that same CEO is making about 200 times more. It isn't unions that kill jobs, it is the greed of the people at the top. Americans should be entitled to decent wages and working conditions. The rest of the First World countries have them, why not us? Greed at the top, that is why.
119
but all that have a job should be able to have not a trump like life but a good life. yes?
1
"The high cost of union wages is still to blame for the loss of many manufacturing jobs ".....
The low cost of cheap foreign (often child) labor is to blame for the loss many manufacturing jobs. We've lost more non-union than union jobs over the years. We've lost jobs "period"! An economically independent nation can't sustain itself on silly apps and social media technology. When the cost of living catches up with those non-union Asians, they might discover that Africans can do many of the jobs Asians used to do.
The low cost of cheap foreign (often child) labor is to blame for the loss many manufacturing jobs. We've lost more non-union than union jobs over the years. We've lost jobs "period"! An economically independent nation can't sustain itself on silly apps and social media technology. When the cost of living catches up with those non-union Asians, they might discover that Africans can do many of the jobs Asians used to do.
7
Why is manufacturing important? Because, service economies do not win wars!
It was our industrial might that was a major factor in winning World War II. We were not only able to supply our own military needs in two theaters of operation but also to supply arms to our allies: the British, the free French, and the Soviet Union.
Today, only 11% of our economy is manufacturing. It is rare to see "Made in America/USA" on any products.
There was a front page article in the local newspaper around a year ago. It dealt with rare earth elements that are used in our high tech weapons. Major deposits were found in the US, but unfortunately, we no longer had the industry or expertise to process them. There was another article during the George W. Bush administration that stated that we could not make one missile without any foreign made components. So, what if we get into a major war with a formidable enemy where the fate of the country is at stake? Will they wait for us to import components from China? They will likely initiate an embargo to shut our military down.
Yes, it makes sense to bring back manufacturing, economically and for national security.
Remember, the countries that increased manufacturing have increased their prosperity and their people's standard of living.
It was our industrial might that was a major factor in winning World War II. We were not only able to supply our own military needs in two theaters of operation but also to supply arms to our allies: the British, the free French, and the Soviet Union.
Today, only 11% of our economy is manufacturing. It is rare to see "Made in America/USA" on any products.
There was a front page article in the local newspaper around a year ago. It dealt with rare earth elements that are used in our high tech weapons. Major deposits were found in the US, but unfortunately, we no longer had the industry or expertise to process them. There was another article during the George W. Bush administration that stated that we could not make one missile without any foreign made components. So, what if we get into a major war with a formidable enemy where the fate of the country is at stake? Will they wait for us to import components from China? They will likely initiate an embargo to shut our military down.
Yes, it makes sense to bring back manufacturing, economically and for national security.
Remember, the countries that increased manufacturing have increased their prosperity and their people's standard of living.
5
So we develop an economy reliant on permanent war? Oh, we already have that.
(Quoting freely from Ha-Joon Chang;) Manufacturing employs less people because it has increased productivity much more than services, which have a very low productivity potential. That doesn't in any way imply that it's less important as a driver for the overall economy, including in the creation of those very service jobs. Apple engineers wouldn't have service jobs without the iPhone, nor would all people in Cupertino who provides services for the Apple engineers, etcetera. The entire "postindustrial" argument is a misconception of the effects of productivity.
2
Part of Rump's appeal is that he is catering to uneducated, blue collar workers who are angry that they don't have it as good as their blue collar parents and grandparents did. Rump won't change this. Rump won't bring the jobs back in steel, coal and auto. Rump offers empty promises and hope to those who should have seen the writing on the wall years ago.
In today's America you have to have a college degree or you will be left behind - period! The days of high paying manufacturing jobs for anyone that wants one have been over for a long time. Rump can blame it on outsourcing, but these jobs have mostly been replaced by robotics and he isn't going to change that either. American parents today had better tell their kids to focus on math, science and getting into college instead of coddling the laziness that has afflicted so much of our youth. The path to the American Dream can no longer be bought punching a factory time clock.
In today's America you have to have a college degree or you will be left behind - period! The days of high paying manufacturing jobs for anyone that wants one have been over for a long time. Rump can blame it on outsourcing, but these jobs have mostly been replaced by robotics and he isn't going to change that either. American parents today had better tell their kids to focus on math, science and getting into college instead of coddling the laziness that has afflicted so much of our youth. The path to the American Dream can no longer be bought punching a factory time clock.
2
Because everyone knows service workers are going to be replaced by computer interfaces and robots... They already have them at most grocery stores and places like Home Depot. I boycott auto-checkout, but it's inevitable with what they're doing in Silicon Valley...
4
This is so sensible that I - a service worker - have to say "Duh." Still, manufacturing enriched related businesses. I saw how suppliers went down the drain when the car industry dried up in Dayton, Ohio. What kinds of related industries will prosper if we focus on the service sector?
3
Short-sighted. We can't all be insurance salesmen or fast-food workers. What doe a blue-collar economy that works actually look like? A manufacturing economy.
10
The ability to manufacture everything we need is a basic requirement of economic independence. Without it, we are dependent, and it is reasonable for Americans to ask what and who we are dependent on. Traditionally Democrats like me don't trust corporations, and we especially don't want to be dependent on corporations who don't need our labor. Traditionally conservatives don't trust government, and particularly not foreign governments. By ignoring this, and basically telling us to trust that corporate rule will turn out okay, the modern Democratic party is aiming for political disaster: Clinton is about to find out that the party cannot govern without its traditional working class base. By pandering to that base without delivering real results the Republicans, the party of business, is in the process of self destructing.
The solution is to move left. It is an interesting fact that even after he lost the nomination, polls show Bernie Sanders would be the most popular candidate for president, if he had been nominated.
The solution is to move left. It is an interesting fact that even after he lost the nomination, polls show Bernie Sanders would be the most popular candidate for president, if he had been nominated.
7
It's also tiring seeing government alone blames for "failed" trade deals that weren't made in a vacuum. Blaming bad deals solely on government suggests total corruption and most trade agreements are simply too large to believe that everyone in the process has been bought off. But that is the kind of simple thinking that Trump and Company want their followers to accept.
The problem with such simple thinking is that it ignores the fact that business don't always play fair either. And that intended outcomes can have far reaching impacts. NAFTA for it's first 5 years after ratification created over 1.1 million new jobs as export markets grew for technology products made in the US. When China joined the agreement in 2000, gains swiftly turned into losses. Much was driven by Wall Street. Mergers and acquisitions forced many business to shed costly operations. Many of these were in large industrial manufacturing, moved off shore. Traditional competitors who didn't follow suit were targeted by corporate raiders who ripped companies apart to profit from their parts. It may be that corporations that advocated free trade policies as a way to grow their international markets were driven to use them in a way they did not intend to stay competitive with those who used them for profit.
Generalizing this as a failure of government plays to the GOP theme, and puts the Democrats on the defensive because there's no sound bite reply for it to draw most voters attention.
The problem with such simple thinking is that it ignores the fact that business don't always play fair either. And that intended outcomes can have far reaching impacts. NAFTA for it's first 5 years after ratification created over 1.1 million new jobs as export markets grew for technology products made in the US. When China joined the agreement in 2000, gains swiftly turned into losses. Much was driven by Wall Street. Mergers and acquisitions forced many business to shed costly operations. Many of these were in large industrial manufacturing, moved off shore. Traditional competitors who didn't follow suit were targeted by corporate raiders who ripped companies apart to profit from their parts. It may be that corporations that advocated free trade policies as a way to grow their international markets were driven to use them in a way they did not intend to stay competitive with those who used them for profit.
Generalizing this as a failure of government plays to the GOP theme, and puts the Democrats on the defensive because there's no sound bite reply for it to draw most voters attention.
9
Remember when American might was built on cars that fell apart at 100,000 miles? Then the Japanese and Germans taught us otherwise. Now rather than having millions of automakers, we have lots of highly trained auto mechanics who keep the cars running for much longer. They are counted as "service workers" when what they are doing is manufacturing longevity. Maybe we need to look at "manufacturing" in a different way.
33
We have myths about manufacturing. One of the myths is that the not well educated can have a good life if they have a manufacturing job. That was true once a long time ago. Another myth is that manufacturing superiority is the hallmark of a great nation. Not true. Look at countries that now do much of the manufacturing, say Bangladesh or India. Factory fires and other hazards make the work very dangerous. The closest we come to wide scale manufacturing is construction. Most Americans don't want to work in the heat and bad weather so they don't want those jobs. The better idea is to take the jobs we have and make sure they pay better, like a living wage. I'd gladly pay more for services and goods if I knew the workers were paid more. If the money just goes into the Koch's or Walton's pocket, not interested. But wearing a blue Walmart uniform doesn't instill pride the way coveralls do. It could though and it should. If we paid more and respected the work done by those around us, we could let go of the manufacturing nostalgia.
11
You use the word "we". Something tells me you aren't inclined to submit an application to Walmart.
4
I'll tell why manufacturing matters. I operate a small cottage industry manufacturing business. I don't remember the source, but once I read a statistic that every manufacturing dollar sold ripples through 13 businesses. My little operation creates dollars for the sheet metal fabricator, his metal suppliers, the electronics parts suppliers and in turn their suppliers, and in turn the raw material suppliers to them. The wire manufacturers, their copper suppliers, the miners that dig the copper and aluminum, the cardboard box makers, the shippers, the post office, it just keeps going. My sales touch many other businesses and generate work for others. Service industry jobs don't do that. It's a one and done with them.
Nothing generates more economic stimulation than manufacturing. So you see, it's not just the jobs on the factory floor, it's all the jobs that went into supporting those products at other facilities. That's why manufacturing is so powerful at generating growth.
Nothing generates more economic stimulation than manufacturing. So you see, it's not just the jobs on the factory floor, it's all the jobs that went into supporting those products at other facilities. That's why manufacturing is so powerful at generating growth.
82
Bruce....So why don't Times columnists know all about this ripple effect, so they can write informative columns like your comment? What's the matter with them?
This ripple effect is also negative...that's why whole towns and regions are in downward spirals, after massive job outsourcing. This could be regulated, but that's a dirty word in our politics. Congrats to the plutos---they won.
Lawmakers share in the profits by campaign donations. Could this connection ever be made by a Times columnist sometime?
The countries that retain more mfg, or who spend to train unionized workers for new jobs, also coincidentally have public financing of elections. Imagine that.
This ripple effect is also negative...that's why whole towns and regions are in downward spirals, after massive job outsourcing. This could be regulated, but that's a dirty word in our politics. Congrats to the plutos---they won.
Lawmakers share in the profits by campaign donations. Could this connection ever be made by a Times columnist sometime?
The countries that retain more mfg, or who spend to train unionized workers for new jobs, also coincidentally have public financing of elections. Imagine that.
Powerful as it may be it is increasingly done by fewer people. So if a government wants to intervene in the market to create jobs and improve conditions for working people, most of whom are in service jobs, where would you put your money.
I cannot believe that an economics journalist wrote this article. Manufacturing jobs are desirable because 1) they are highly paid 2) they attract supply chain - means additional jobs in the same area and 3) the higher multiplier: jobs in marketing, packaging, delivering...
There are a few places that do not need manufacturing jobs: such as high finance- NYC or programming- S.V. or tourist destinations: Yellowstone.
For an individual job seeker, there is nothing wrong to get into service sector if she/he can find a career. But for a politician, manufacturing industries are backbones, boring but very important.
There are a few places that do not need manufacturing jobs: such as high finance- NYC or programming- S.V. or tourist destinations: Yellowstone.
For an individual job seeker, there is nothing wrong to get into service sector if she/he can find a career. But for a politician, manufacturing industries are backbones, boring but very important.
22
Nobody I know who works in a manufacturing job is highly paid. People who are machinists, welders, even people who put together guitar amps, they are making something like $15/hour median. Even the guys at the top of those manufacturing companies aren't making that much compared to an investment banker, hospital board member, etc.
The supply chain comment isn't quite right either, because most of "us" (people who make and sell physical goods, including myself) order things online. It's a lot easier to click a button on Amazon (or Ali Express) than to drive across town through late afternoon traffic just to get some packing tape or cardboard boxes, and things that are even more specialized aren't often available from a local source.
The supply chain comment isn't quite right either, because most of "us" (people who make and sell physical goods, including myself) order things online. It's a lot easier to click a button on Amazon (or Ali Express) than to drive across town through late afternoon traffic just to get some packing tape or cardboard boxes, and things that are even more specialized aren't often available from a local source.
3
Well, it is about large manufacturers: car, plane, ship, appliance, RV, tractors...There are ample academic studies showing strong positive impacts of those manufacturers.
And there is the comparison: compared to programmers in CA or traders in NYC, no it is low paid. But relative to many service workers, it is good job.
And there is the comparison: compared to programmers in CA or traders in NYC, no it is low paid. But relative to many service workers, it is good job.
Health care jobs bypassed manufacturing jobs several years ago. America now has a vested interest in sick people. It is necessary for the health of our economy that Americans continue to be sick. The sicker the better. It means an active economy.
6
Government now employed 10 million more than manufacturing. While technology has made buildings safer, the internet has made corporate training self serve as well as banking, insurance government employs more firemen, teachers, DMV workers, toll takers etc with pensions and tenure protection. The largest single employment category now in the US is elementary school teachers according to the dept of Labor..I know many in Conn who's make 75k plus and with benefits /benefits grow to a 6 figure comp package. Growing up in a machinist family I knew they made a solid living especially in defense industries(sadly family could not get employed there) but the only equivalent today for moderately educated people is govt and public education work. Hilary is a strong advocate of teachers and govt employees so the differential may increase.
1
Can't tell if that was sarcasm or not, but it's true. It has a lot to do with an aging population and a lot to do with the incredible economic stress that most people face combined with "diseases of civilization" such as diabetes and heart disease. All those great manufacturers built all this great stuff that ends up killing us one way or another: pollution, laziness, complacency. And we work hard for that painful death, so we can spend the money on all that stuff.
1
"Millwork ain't easy, millwork ain't hard,
Millwork it ain't nothing
But an awful boring job.
I'm waiting for a daydream
To take me through the morning
And put me in my coffee break
Where I can have a sandwich and remember.
Then it's me and my machine for the rest of the morning,
for the rest of the afternoon and the rest of my life."
-- James Taylor
Millwork it ain't nothing
But an awful boring job.
I'm waiting for a daydream
To take me through the morning
And put me in my coffee break
Where I can have a sandwich and remember.
Then it's me and my machine for the rest of the morning,
for the rest of the afternoon and the rest of my life."
-- James Taylor
4
The mill paid for millions of kids and college educations for them.
3
I doubt that james Taylor ever worked in a mill. In the 80's I worked for a railroad rebuilding locomotives while I went to Law School. It was a strenuous job required a pretty high degree of ability. We were paid well and had decent benefits only because we were unionized. There was a long waiting list of people who wanted to work there.
6
San Francisco has no manufacturing jobs and has the highest economic boom in the country.. 15$ an hour and health care make the service better off. Many are getting much more than the 15$ minimum. Ohio please copy.
3
San Francisco is the unique center of not one but several insanely profitable high tech industries. It's a phenomena and not one you can just 'Duplicate Elsewhere" on demand.
Also: those $15 an hour burger flippers in SF can't afford even a tiny studio apartment. The average apartment in SF is $4000 a month! the median house (a tiny shack) is $2 million.
On the other hand, in Cleveland Ohio you can BUY a pretty nice house for $50,000 -- and rent an apartment for $700 a month. The money goes 3.5 times further, so even at lower wages....the burger flipper is far, far better off here.
Also: those $15 an hour burger flippers in SF can't afford even a tiny studio apartment. The average apartment in SF is $4000 a month! the median house (a tiny shack) is $2 million.
On the other hand, in Cleveland Ohio you can BUY a pretty nice house for $50,000 -- and rent an apartment for $700 a month. The money goes 3.5 times further, so even at lower wages....the burger flipper is far, far better off here.
2
Yes, it's important to point out that the broad category of "service" includes jobs such as those highly-paid software developers, financial consultants, etc in SF. It's not just about being a Wal-Mart greeter or an ER nurse.
2
And SF won't let a Walmart store. build a box in the city. . SF does not cater to Trump like ripoffs.. No casinos either. .
:"Cleveland Ohio you can BUY a pretty nice house for $50,000"
so what? nobody in SF is selling their 1 million dollar house and moving there . -
:"Cleveland Ohio you can BUY a pretty nice house for $50,000"
so what? nobody in SF is selling their 1 million dollar house and moving there . -
Two thoughts:
1. There is dignity in actually making something that only those on the assembly line can understand. Sure, the salaries and benefits for these jobs tended to be better than average, but on top of that, seeing a car or other product in circulation and being able to say, "Yeah, I build (or help to build) those" conveyed a certain intangible wage as well.
2. Politicians are focusing their rhetoric on the manufacturing sector as a way of making up for, or at least deflecting attention from, their own role in letting these jobs leave in the first place. Sure, globalization took its toll. But our government did not have to let the consequences of it be as severe as they have been for many. They could have voted for greater re-training of displaced workers. They could have at least voted to impose severe tax penalties on companies which off-shored these jobs. They didn't do any of this. Instead, they just took the companies' campaign contributions and let them lay waste to many communities by leaving them flat.
1. There is dignity in actually making something that only those on the assembly line can understand. Sure, the salaries and benefits for these jobs tended to be better than average, but on top of that, seeing a car or other product in circulation and being able to say, "Yeah, I build (or help to build) those" conveyed a certain intangible wage as well.
2. Politicians are focusing their rhetoric on the manufacturing sector as a way of making up for, or at least deflecting attention from, their own role in letting these jobs leave in the first place. Sure, globalization took its toll. But our government did not have to let the consequences of it be as severe as they have been for many. They could have voted for greater re-training of displaced workers. They could have at least voted to impose severe tax penalties on companies which off-shored these jobs. They didn't do any of this. Instead, they just took the companies' campaign contributions and let them lay waste to many communities by leaving them flat.
8
>>>
I] Manufacturing jobs "generally" paid more.
2] Service jobs are low paying......, and like manufacturing jobs and many others will soon be replaced by robots.....
Marx's prediction about technology and the workers will come true in the next two decades, assuming Trump doesn't light off a few ICBMs in the meantime. Today's CEO's know this future worker's dilemma is true and approaching and much has been written about it, but why panic the herd now with it.
"A virulent form of utopianism has indeed afflicted the modern age, but its name is not Marxism. It is the crazed notion that a single global system known as the free market can impose itself on the most diverse cultures and economies and cure all their ills. The purveyors of this totalitarian fantasy are not to be found hiding scar-faced and sinisterly soft-spoken in underground bunkers like James Bond villains. They are to be seen dining at upmarket Washington restaurants and strolling on Sussex estates. Theodor Adorno’s answer to the question of whether Marx was a utopian thinker is a decisive yes and no. He was, Adorno writes, an enemy of utopia for the sake of its realization."
Terry Eagleton
I] Manufacturing jobs "generally" paid more.
2] Service jobs are low paying......, and like manufacturing jobs and many others will soon be replaced by robots.....
Marx's prediction about technology and the workers will come true in the next two decades, assuming Trump doesn't light off a few ICBMs in the meantime. Today's CEO's know this future worker's dilemma is true and approaching and much has been written about it, but why panic the herd now with it.
"A virulent form of utopianism has indeed afflicted the modern age, but its name is not Marxism. It is the crazed notion that a single global system known as the free market can impose itself on the most diverse cultures and economies and cure all their ills. The purveyors of this totalitarian fantasy are not to be found hiding scar-faced and sinisterly soft-spoken in underground bunkers like James Bond villains. They are to be seen dining at upmarket Washington restaurants and strolling on Sussex estates. Theodor Adorno’s answer to the question of whether Marx was a utopian thinker is a decisive yes and no. He was, Adorno writes, an enemy of utopia for the sake of its realization."
Terry Eagleton
6
Yes manufacturing is important, but don't expect it to generate jobs. Factories that at one time might have hired 2-300 people can now, due to automation, be operated by, maybe, a dozen.
1
My husband is an engineer at a small local electronics firm. They make circuit boards. This ONE small business alone has a factory floor with over 125 assembly workers.
Almost none of it is automated. Not everything is automated -- not everything can be -- automation is still quite costly, with huge start up costs.
So in fact, you are wrong.
Almost none of it is automated. Not everything is automated -- not everything can be -- automation is still quite costly, with huge start up costs.
So in fact, you are wrong.
2
Bill, the jobs in Asia that are supplying us with most of the products we used to make are not automated and largely manual labor.
I, for one, would prefer to buy products made in the US even if the are more expensive.
I, for one, would prefer to buy products made in the US even if the are more expensive.
5
I hate the fact that it's almost impossible to buy American-made clothes and shoes. Ditto for appliances, hardware items, coffee cups, you name it. I'm tired of Chinese junk that doesn't fit, breaks easily, and is made of substandard materials. I'd rather pay more and buy American, but often the option isn't available. Maybe politicians have the same problem.
21
Me too. I try to buy less, so when I do buy something I can at least buy something that was made in a Western country with decent wages, if not America.
3
Are you tired of your IPhone?
1
I suspect that a whole bunch of ex manufacturing employees would roll on the floor laughing if service work were presented to them as an option.
4
I guess that is the new "meme" now of lefty liberalism -- we were stupid or blind, and we didn't see those HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF JOBS go off to China, India, Pakistan, Mexico....no it was all AUTOMATION.
That's the big bugaboo. And nobody wants to be Luddite and oppose modern automation, now would they????
Except it isn't true. There has been SOME automation, but not nearly as much as implied. And it is rare working or middle class person who could not tell you dozens of stories about themselves, friends, spouses, colleagues who lost their jobs when the factory/store/industry was DELIBERATELY MOVED OFF SHORE so that the corporation could pay 40 cents an hour instead of $20 an hour.
That's the big bugaboo. And nobody wants to be Luddite and oppose modern automation, now would they????
Except it isn't true. There has been SOME automation, but not nearly as much as implied. And it is rare working or middle class person who could not tell you dozens of stories about themselves, friends, spouses, colleagues who lost their jobs when the factory/store/industry was DELIBERATELY MOVED OFF SHORE so that the corporation could pay 40 cents an hour instead of $20 an hour.
23
I'm a lefty. Liberal isn't the word: I prefer socialist. And I agree with you. So do alot of people on the left. So what's with the invective?
7
People who outsourced American jobs were not lefty liberals, and you should study the history of the auto industry. In the 1970s the Japanese made better more fuel efficient cars than Detroit did. American consumers liked those cars and the decline in American manufacturing began. Fuel efficient cars became necessary after OPEC significantly raised the price of oil after the 1973 Mideast War. In a similar vein, the Japanese began to dominate the electronic markets as firms like Sony and Panasonic made products that the American consumer were willing to buy. Sony became a brand associated with quality, and Americans began to realize that good products could be made outside the US.
5
To paraphrase the bestselling book, it doesn't matter who moved your cheese, what's important to understand is that the cheese has moved. Stop whining about it and find another food source or move to a better environment. That's what mice do, that's what the rest of the animal kingdom does, and it's certainly what SMART human beings have done since the beginning of time and continue to do. There's no turning back the clock, not now, not ever.
Well geez, maybe we don't want service work, where we have to plaster artificial smiles on our exhausted faces or handle people ranting over the phone at us, for minimum wage eight hours a day.
Thank God I never throw anything out. Otherwise who would believe that dishes and bedsheets used to be made in this country? And that things weren't designed to fall apart yearly? I'm still using towels my mom got as a wedding gift--71 years ago, and they*re still nice. And please don't tell anyone I*ve got her USA-made Revere copper-bottomed cookware or they might try to break in and steal it. Twice as heavy as that made-in-China stuff.
There*s a genuine satisfaction in going home tired at the end of the day but knowing you actually made stuff that people like you are going to use. Following Starbucks* dress code and filling paper cups? Not so much.
Thank God I never throw anything out. Otherwise who would believe that dishes and bedsheets used to be made in this country? And that things weren't designed to fall apart yearly? I'm still using towels my mom got as a wedding gift--71 years ago, and they*re still nice. And please don't tell anyone I*ve got her USA-made Revere copper-bottomed cookware or they might try to break in and steal it. Twice as heavy as that made-in-China stuff.
There*s a genuine satisfaction in going home tired at the end of the day but knowing you actually made stuff that people like you are going to use. Following Starbucks* dress code and filling paper cups? Not so much.
17
A "service" job is not necessarily a "customer service" job. Freelance designer, construction worker, and ambulance driver are just three examples of service jobs that don't fit into the narrow stereotype of your Starbucks example.
3
Ho right you are! Even LL Bean now manufacturers its stuff overseas. I still have very old cotton towels, now ragged but still much better drying. And I have old Farberware that was made in the Bronx and is still fantastic. We are killing our planet by buying poor quality things manufactured overseas to sustain the profits of executives and investor--things that are meant to be disposable and quickly replaced and then disposed of and again replaced and....
It would be nice if we were almost completely dependent on the dictator Chairman Xi of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party for maintaining our economy afloat.
Why must Apple manufacture its I Phones in communist Chinese sweatshops...other than to reduce costs and increase profits...and make some of their products here?
Lenin said, "We will hang the capitalists with the rope they sold us."
Why are we so willing to be hung using our own inventions?
Why must Apple manufacture its I Phones in communist Chinese sweatshops...other than to reduce costs and increase profits...and make some of their products here?
Lenin said, "We will hang the capitalists with the rope they sold us."
Why are we so willing to be hung using our own inventions?
6
I think about this as well, when people speak of the "Chinese miracle" it's partially an "American miracle." The fact is that if it came down to war between China and the US, we'd just hit them so hard that we'd never have to repay any of that debt. Their banks and financial institutions would cease to exist. But all the money we've sent them in decades past would make such a war much more dangerous for our military. Without the manufacturing jobs that we all created for them as consumers of their products, there would be no reason for us to go to war with them in the first place.
1
We need to raise the wages of service workers, most of whom are adults. The market by itself isn't going to bring fair wages to workers. Many modern industries are hard to unionize and without unions there is no pressure for better wages, since the customers don't wish to pay more nor do the employers.
What has made it worse is that our low wage economy is made worse by a tax structure that puts the costs onto everyone instead of on the employers who pay low wages. We need to tax low wage employers for their adult workers in the same way we tax employers to pay for unemployment.
What has made it worse is that our low wage economy is made worse by a tax structure that puts the costs onto everyone instead of on the employers who pay low wages. We need to tax low wage employers for their adult workers in the same way we tax employers to pay for unemployment.
5
"Many home health aides live close to the poverty line: Average annual wages were just $22,870 last year. "
And how many households can afford to pay anything more than that for home healthcare or child care services? How many households in US make over $250k a year to afford higher wages for help with seniors or children?
And how many households can afford to pay anything more than that for home healthcare or child care services? How many households in US make over $250k a year to afford higher wages for help with seniors or children?
8
Actually...those rich people have no problem affording help. But they are like 4% of the population! ($250K and over; look it up!)
The REST OF US have a serious problem if we need help at home in old age -- TODAY it costs about $21 an hour for home health aides. About half goes to the agency, for placing workers -- doing scheduling -- paying taxes and payroll -- and advertising. The workers get $9-$12 (in my area, Midwest).
EVEN SO....do the math. If a senior needs 24 hour care, it is $500 a DAY! That's $3500 a week and $15,000 a month and $180,000 a year. Those are bankrupting costs for most working class and middle class seniors! Even half a day with help would run $90,000 a year -- and the average SS check brings in $14,000 a year.
For gods sake -- DO THE MATH.
You do not and cannot bill clients on "how much wealth they have" but must set a fair rate that reflects your costs.
High home health aide costs also drive many frail seniors into nursing homes -- where they go bankrupt too! -- and then into Medicaid facilities, where the huge costs fall on US THE TAXPAYER.
It's a lose-lose situation and I cannot figure out how one could improve it. It's already far too expensive! even worse, half the home health aides I have hired, ended up robbing my elderly relatives blind. Grift and theft is very common in this field. It's so easy to steal from a frail elderly person, who is maybe in a wheelchair or has dementia!
The REST OF US have a serious problem if we need help at home in old age -- TODAY it costs about $21 an hour for home health aides. About half goes to the agency, for placing workers -- doing scheduling -- paying taxes and payroll -- and advertising. The workers get $9-$12 (in my area, Midwest).
EVEN SO....do the math. If a senior needs 24 hour care, it is $500 a DAY! That's $3500 a week and $15,000 a month and $180,000 a year. Those are bankrupting costs for most working class and middle class seniors! Even half a day with help would run $90,000 a year -- and the average SS check brings in $14,000 a year.
For gods sake -- DO THE MATH.
You do not and cannot bill clients on "how much wealth they have" but must set a fair rate that reflects your costs.
High home health aide costs also drive many frail seniors into nursing homes -- where they go bankrupt too! -- and then into Medicaid facilities, where the huge costs fall on US THE TAXPAYER.
It's a lose-lose situation and I cannot figure out how one could improve it. It's already far too expensive! even worse, half the home health aides I have hired, ended up robbing my elderly relatives blind. Grift and theft is very common in this field. It's so easy to steal from a frail elderly person, who is maybe in a wheelchair or has dementia!
6
Concerned Citizen, everything you say is true and we MUST figure out how we can improve it, because this is the reality of the future: growing costs of health care for all but especially for the elderly, fewer people wanting to take the underpaid jobs of caregiving.
NYTimes columnists are one class that can afford paying much more than 22,870 for child care or home aide services. But a large % of Americans can't.
"labora vistus frusta." Latin, for "I labor with great frustration," since 90% of my posts are not permitted by your censorship, but here goes.
The American economy has/was built on manufacturing since the "Industrial Revolution." And, to imply/state/posit that loss of this sector is not devastating, is fatuous nonsense and "whistling past the graveyard."
The American economy has/was built on manufacturing since the "Industrial Revolution." And, to imply/state/posit that loss of this sector is not devastating, is fatuous nonsense and "whistling past the graveyard."
8
Sorry but I can see why your posts don't appear.
Why are they promoting a manufacturing solution when that's basically impossible? Opportunistic and philistine politicians spewing hogwash to get votes of uninformed, scared, downwardly-mobile U.S. workers. And there's plenty of such sentiment in the handful of comments below, as well. These jobs left because of globalization, and they are not coming back, period, no matter what any politician says or does (unless we shut down all trade and have the government dictate all industrial activity, like in a real socialist/fascist economy such as the Soviet Union or Hitler's Germany - scarily actually possible under a president like Trump).
Benefits of all the free trade pacts from Bill Clinton and the Bushes were predicated (by economists) on there being short-term winners (capitalists) and losers (workers) which would require large cash-transfers balance this out. The politicians forgot to include that in what was shoved through Congress, and guess why: workers have absolutely no voice on Capitol Hill.
Now the economy is more than 34% freelance workers (will be 50% by 2020), none of whom are eligible for unemployment insurance if their clients disappear, and none of whom get the cushy health benefits of Employee-status workers. They have even less of a voice in D.C., since they have no real union. Until politicians start talking about re-tooling with these people in mind, whatever they're saying about U.S. workers and the economy is all garbage.
Benefits of all the free trade pacts from Bill Clinton and the Bushes were predicated (by economists) on there being short-term winners (capitalists) and losers (workers) which would require large cash-transfers balance this out. The politicians forgot to include that in what was shoved through Congress, and guess why: workers have absolutely no voice on Capitol Hill.
Now the economy is more than 34% freelance workers (will be 50% by 2020), none of whom are eligible for unemployment insurance if their clients disappear, and none of whom get the cushy health benefits of Employee-status workers. They have even less of a voice in D.C., since they have no real union. Until politicians start talking about re-tooling with these people in mind, whatever they're saying about U.S. workers and the economy is all garbage.
15
We could outproduce the rest of the world at a lower cost but the people at the top and investors demand extremely high executive pay and enormous profits at the expense of competition.
4
Do you know why the North won over the South in the Civil War? The North had manufacturing and they were able to turn their factories to make supplies for the war. The South had no manufacturing and no way to make what they needed.
What will happen in the future wars, the wars on American land?
There's a good reason to obsess over factories, short-term in terms of jobs, taxes, research and development, etc as well as for the long term, and the just-in-case.
What will happen in the future wars, the wars on American land?
There's a good reason to obsess over factories, short-term in terms of jobs, taxes, research and development, etc as well as for the long term, and the just-in-case.
15
Did you read this part of the 6th paragraph? "But the value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after adjusting for inflation. The present moment, in other words, is the most productive in the nation’s history."
2
and Rome had the phalanx....but no need to obsess over who has better spears now a days. Anyways manufacturing productivity is still very high, its just done with a lot less people.
2
Not only the North over the South but also for the Allies in WWI and WWII.
Who was the Arsenal of Democracy? Not Britain or France!
It was the USA.
Who was the Arsenal of Democracy? Not Britain or France!
It was the USA.
I grew up in East Chicago, Indiana, and unless my September visit misled me, there is plenty of steel making going on at Arcelor-Mittal. I appreciate that other categories workers need attention but demanding that no attention be given to industrial communities is part of the problem. I am no fan of Mr. Trump, i hasten to note. But am collecting fictional short stories from people who grew up in steel mill towns for a collection to be called Children of Steel. That is, unless this columnist has some objection.
It is the easiest thing in the world to malign people at the bottom or to explain why they need not be considered stake holders.
Those much-reduced numbers of active steel workers do not include many subsidiary industries that also depend upon steel. There are many family members of those who used to work in steel mills who would appreciate not using the "delete' button for their lives and their town's histories. Because a person does not care about an industry or a place, it is expedient to label any attention given to these people and places as "nostalgia politics."
Much of the steel around us is made right here. And not only are there "Six Million Stories in the Naked City," as the old TV show ending said, but there are numerous and compelling stories in industrial communities. "Rust Belt literature" now has its own discussion group at the Modern Language Association. Look us up!
Sincerely, Gloria McMillan
It is the easiest thing in the world to malign people at the bottom or to explain why they need not be considered stake holders.
Those much-reduced numbers of active steel workers do not include many subsidiary industries that also depend upon steel. There are many family members of those who used to work in steel mills who would appreciate not using the "delete' button for their lives and their town's histories. Because a person does not care about an industry or a place, it is expedient to label any attention given to these people and places as "nostalgia politics."
Much of the steel around us is made right here. And not only are there "Six Million Stories in the Naked City," as the old TV show ending said, but there are numerous and compelling stories in industrial communities. "Rust Belt literature" now has its own discussion group at the Modern Language Association. Look us up!
Sincerely, Gloria McMillan
1
tell me that the auto assembly plants moved from Michigan to Mexico don't employ factory workers. Or tell the BMW workers in SC, the Mercedes workers in Alabama... and Toyota, Subaru workers in those plants that they don't have jobs. Yes automation has reduced the jobs but not eliminated them.
And yes there are good things coming this way that require different skills but we have neglected to examine all the policies that might keep more jobs here or use the cheaper energy of natural gas to bring back a few more jobs. Yes the world is changing, here too but have we exhausted our efforts to help? Most say NO, NO. That is the debate, not the reduction from automation, robotics and data driven jobs moved to Asia for high tech operations.
And yes there are good things coming this way that require different skills but we have neglected to examine all the policies that might keep more jobs here or use the cheaper energy of natural gas to bring back a few more jobs. Yes the world is changing, here too but have we exhausted our efforts to help? Most say NO, NO. That is the debate, not the reduction from automation, robotics and data driven jobs moved to Asia for high tech operations.
4
With this backdrop I call those forces who conspire to kill Musk's Tesla treasonous to the US. Here Tesla is building hundreds of thousands of cars and sell them to the Chinese, the Norwegian and the GERMANs, reduce our oil import bill, and building the worlds's largest factory in Nevada (Gigafactory). Tesla is reviving American manufacturing and powerful forces (big oil, GM, Detroit etc) are out trying to kill it.
3
Bring the steel industry back to Pittsburgh? Total baloney and anyone who thinks that any President of the US can make that happen is deep into magical thinking. Truth is, there is a very significant amount of manufacturing in the USA. I ought to know because I'm an owner and manager of a small metal working company that's been in business since the late 19th Century - a survivor! But how did we do that? Lots of reasons but the metric that should resonate is that records show that at the turn of the (20th) Century, about 150 men (and it was all men) were employed to make the products customers needed then. Today, with nearly dollar equivalent sales, making very different product, our total employment is 26 men and women. What makes America great is productivity, not paying wages equivalent to the cheap offshore competitors in order to employ lots of bodies. Multiply our story by all the manufacturing companies still operating in the USA and the answer is all about reducing labor costs by increasing productivity. Those of us too small to afford to flee offshore had to find other ways to stay in business.
So why do politicians obsess? Because a significant portion of the electorate obsesses about it. Even if they have no clue about how anything is actually manufactured, how supply chains operate, or what employers face trying to find employable people with skills and productive work habits. They have chosen to be stuck in a fantasy past.
So why do politicians obsess? Because a significant portion of the electorate obsesses about it. Even if they have no clue about how anything is actually manufactured, how supply chains operate, or what employers face trying to find employable people with skills and productive work habits. They have chosen to be stuck in a fantasy past.
6
Income for bottom 90% has declined http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2015/income-growth4-15.png
3
My first attempt to comment this story has not shown up. And I apologize if this crosses it and it does appear.
I grew up in East Chicago, Indiana, (Arcelor-Mittal Steel) and it is obvious that the writer of this essay is removed enough from industrial communities as to have no problem dispensing with them. while I have no intention of voting for Donald Trump, I did spend my first 23 years in a steel mill town.
Playing with numbers of a shrunken steel worker labor force as an excuse to "delete' any mention of these people and their communities is deplorable. Calling out for more time to another group (senior care professionals) is also a well-trodden rhetorical strategy to divide and--what?--conquer?
A few of us are putting together a collection of short fiction by people who have either grown up, lived, or worked in steel mill towns to be called Children of Steel.
We cannot delete our lives and the histories of our towns to suit the whims of others. That is one overlooked portion of this published tirade against too much attention being given to steel workers. From my perspective as a trained specialist in the field of rhetoric. It is far better to speak than remain merely spoken-of. I commend others in this comment section who are speaking from personal experience in steel mill towns.
I welcome you to visit the new Modern Language Association group called "Rust Belt Literature" at the MLA.org online Commons.
I grew up in East Chicago, Indiana, (Arcelor-Mittal Steel) and it is obvious that the writer of this essay is removed enough from industrial communities as to have no problem dispensing with them. while I have no intention of voting for Donald Trump, I did spend my first 23 years in a steel mill town.
Playing with numbers of a shrunken steel worker labor force as an excuse to "delete' any mention of these people and their communities is deplorable. Calling out for more time to another group (senior care professionals) is also a well-trodden rhetorical strategy to divide and--what?--conquer?
A few of us are putting together a collection of short fiction by people who have either grown up, lived, or worked in steel mill towns to be called Children of Steel.
We cannot delete our lives and the histories of our towns to suit the whims of others. That is one overlooked portion of this published tirade against too much attention being given to steel workers. From my perspective as a trained specialist in the field of rhetoric. It is far better to speak than remain merely spoken-of. I commend others in this comment section who are speaking from personal experience in steel mill towns.
I welcome you to visit the new Modern Language Association group called "Rust Belt Literature" at the MLA.org online Commons.
7
Service work includes tax accountants, car mechanics, plumbers, appliance repairmen, etc, and in the San Francisco Bay area these services bill at or near $100 an hour. Work done by a handyman is $40-80, depending on skills.
This is in an economy that is fueled by the money generated by the Tech industry which is not "manufacturing" either. San Francisco had light industry, but that left beginning in the late 70's.
This is in an economy that is fueled by the money generated by the Tech industry which is not "manufacturing" either. San Francisco had light industry, but that left beginning in the late 70's.
2
Just about the time Americans decided foreign cars were better made and American workers were paid so well it was driving the cost of cars up.
So now cars and their parts are manufactured all over the world. I'm presuming cheaper with less regard to regulations.
They are more expensive than ever.
So now cars and their parts are manufactured all over the world. I'm presuming cheaper with less regard to regulations.
They are more expensive than ever.
3
It is in manufacturing, turning raw materials into consumer goods, that real return on investment is made.
5
Politicians loves nostalgia. The coal miners, and the auto workers, and the farmers in faded overalls driving around on old John Deere tractors. It's supposed to create an image of the 'good 'ole days'. Unfortunately, it doesn't also mention that those are hard, tough jobs...something the current generation just doesn't want to do.
4
You hit the nail on the head. Don't want to and at the moment don't have to do
because other countries will do the dirty work for us.
because other countries will do the dirty work for us.
Exactly, picture a sixteen year old near you pulling out their smartphone in the middle of the cotton field for a sweaty selfie.
1
1. To lower carbon emissions, goods will need to be made closer to the point of use.
2. There are many people who are not able to work in a customer facing situation. They still need to support themselves.
3. It's easier to increase productivity in goods producing industries, rather than service industries. Increased productivity can mean increasing incomes.
4. Better pollution controls.
5. Better labor standards.
2. There are many people who are not able to work in a customer facing situation. They still need to support themselves.
3. It's easier to increase productivity in goods producing industries, rather than service industries. Increased productivity can mean increasing incomes.
4. Better pollution controls.
5. Better labor standards.
6
1. Transportation of the finished product is just a tiny fraction of the carbon footprint of a given product. If you're making lunchboxes near a school but all the plastic and metal are shipped in from across the ocean, what's the difference?
2. "Customer service" jobs are not the only "service" jobs.
3. Also not true, explain Airbnb, Uber, etc.
4. That's one of the reasons we shipped all the manufacturing overseas to start with: China, Thailand, Malaysia etc didn't even have pollution laws.
2. "Customer service" jobs are not the only "service" jobs.
3. Also not true, explain Airbnb, Uber, etc.
4. That's one of the reasons we shipped all the manufacturing overseas to start with: China, Thailand, Malaysia etc didn't even have pollution laws.
Because post-WWII manufacturing was what created the middle class and spawned the image of the "American Dream" used in countless political speeches ever since.
That period in American history (where we conveniently faced little to no foreign competition) is still viewed socially, morally and economically as the high-point of the American century.
Calling out these jobs is a way for politicians to evoke feelings of a (supposedly) better, safer more innocent time in our history. To say you don't care about manufacturing jobs (and want to somehow bring them back) is untenable politically.
Selling our mythology story is how politicians keep their jobs.
That period in American history (where we conveniently faced little to no foreign competition) is still viewed socially, morally and economically as the high-point of the American century.
Calling out these jobs is a way for politicians to evoke feelings of a (supposedly) better, safer more innocent time in our history. To say you don't care about manufacturing jobs (and want to somehow bring them back) is untenable politically.
Selling our mythology story is how politicians keep their jobs.
8
What you say is correct but there should be a better balance between manufacturing and service jobs than we have today. Soon the Asians will be tired of working for us and we will have a big problem.
Those eu countries that have long recovered from ww2 have been realizing the american dream better than we do. Germany and other countries have more mfg jobs than the US and they export their well made products.
Even with all their problems, they have more middle class security, more economic mobility, less child poverty, they all get health care and low cost edu/training, they support unions, they fund child care for all, and public trans.
That's all impossible here, and the excuses makers are all ready with the rationalizations.
Thes nations use mostly public funding for elections. while we turn over ours to corporations. Real simple.
Even with all their problems, they have more middle class security, more economic mobility, less child poverty, they all get health care and low cost edu/training, they support unions, they fund child care for all, and public trans.
That's all impossible here, and the excuses makers are all ready with the rationalizations.
Thes nations use mostly public funding for elections. while we turn over ours to corporations. Real simple.
A German industrial executive once dismissed the post-industrial US economy as "basically 300 million people standing around selling each other hamburgers." That's the problem with your "service jobs" Mr. Applebaum. They don't really consist of anyone adding significant value to production of real goods which are the foundation of an economy. Raw material extraction and agricultural production are not going to sustain a wealthy way of life, as any citizen of a third world country can tell you.
27
Rather soon now more manufacturer products will be created by robots with little human labor required. So the question is how will the wealth created by automation be distributed.
3
Totally wrong... look at all the people walking around in SF where you live, many of whom are making $100K their first year out of college. Those are service jobs too.
When people are nostalgic for manufacturing jobs, they are really nostalgic for middle-class union jobs.
175
To RBCRG--There is more to this than jobs. People grew up in these industrial towns and some still live there. Reducing a town and its people to "jobs" (unionized or not) is a very inhumane way to speak about a place and its people. Jobs are part of the picture but not the whole picture.
When we summarize and tell people to "move on" and "talk only about what jobs they do now," we cause cognitive dissonance. We only have one life and most people do not respond well when they are told to forget their entire past. Is any of this getting through to anybody?
When we summarize and tell people to "move on" and "talk only about what jobs they do now," we cause cognitive dissonance. We only have one life and most people do not respond well when they are told to forget their entire past. Is any of this getting through to anybody?
1
Here's the thing: Manufacturing jobs used to be pretty good, creating prosperity for entire cities and providing a way for those born relatively poor to build stable lives for themselves and their families.
Of course, when discussing those halcyon days, politicians tend to gloss over the fact that the reason those jobs were pretty good was because workers had effective representation via a union. And that mattered more than the exact nature of the work. If those working in retail, fast food, and child care were unionized, that would make a big difference. And the good news is that there's an organization out there trying to do just that, namely the UFCW.
The path forward is clear. Whether we'll take it is open to question.
Of course, when discussing those halcyon days, politicians tend to gloss over the fact that the reason those jobs were pretty good was because workers had effective representation via a union. And that mattered more than the exact nature of the work. If those working in retail, fast food, and child care were unionized, that would make a big difference. And the good news is that there's an organization out there trying to do just that, namely the UFCW.
The path forward is clear. Whether we'll take it is open to question.
8
Yeah, but when those places had unions...there was no mass of 30 million illegals, happy to work under the table for $4 an hour.
Anyone trying to bump up the pay for a burger flipper to $15 an hour...has to realize that the restaurant will just lay that guy off, and hire an illegal alien to do the job MUCH CHEAPER.
And thanks to Obama and Hillary, we can't even deport them. If we try, we are "xenophobic hateful bigots".
Anyone trying to bump up the pay for a burger flipper to $15 an hour...has to realize that the restaurant will just lay that guy off, and hire an illegal alien to do the job MUCH CHEAPER.
And thanks to Obama and Hillary, we can't even deport them. If we try, we are "xenophobic hateful bigots".
1
Well, how about first reading this .pdf study from the U.S. Department of Commerce entitled "The Benefits of Manufacturing Jobs" and then tell me manufacturing doesn't matter?
http://www.esa.doc.gov/sites/default/files/1thebenefitsofmanufacturingjo...
http://www.esa.doc.gov/sites/default/files/1thebenefitsofmanufacturingjo...
6
Mr. Applebaum gives us the same flawed logic that Donald Trump does - that we are losing manufacturing jobs to overseas companies. in reality, we have lost one -third of manufacturing jobs over the last 30 years, while simultaneously doubling manufacturing output. These jobs were mainly lost because of productivity gains made by domestic firms; without these productivity gains, US manufacturing firms would not be competitive in international markets. The US ranks second only to China in the value of its manufacturing output.
1
"From an economic perspective, however, there can be no revival of American manufacturing, because there has been no collapse. Because of automation, there are far fewer jobs in factories."
While this is true, that does not preclude the possibility of expanding employment in the manufacturing sector, while fundamentally misdiagnosing why the majority of manufacturing jobs disappeared. Manufacturing, both as a form of employment as a component of GDP, has shrunk relative to the services sector. Part of that shrinkage has been the result of a natural economic transition driven by higher standards of living, technological change, and automation; the primary cause, however, has been globalization. The data on that are pretty clear. We can debate whether or not globalization has been a net-positive or negative, but to deny its role in the loss of manufacturing jobs since 2000 is to ignore reality.
Vaclav Smil has argued, quite convincingly in my opinion, that the growth of the services sector and the decline in manufacturing as not two sides of the same coin, and need not be viewed as such. Public policy directed at counteracting the negative effects of industrial policy in the developing world (looking at you and your state subsidies for unprofitable factories, China) would result in more manufacturing, and more manufacturing jobs, in the United States.
We can, and should, have *both* increasing automation in our factories and job growth in the manufacturing sector.
While this is true, that does not preclude the possibility of expanding employment in the manufacturing sector, while fundamentally misdiagnosing why the majority of manufacturing jobs disappeared. Manufacturing, both as a form of employment as a component of GDP, has shrunk relative to the services sector. Part of that shrinkage has been the result of a natural economic transition driven by higher standards of living, technological change, and automation; the primary cause, however, has been globalization. The data on that are pretty clear. We can debate whether or not globalization has been a net-positive or negative, but to deny its role in the loss of manufacturing jobs since 2000 is to ignore reality.
Vaclav Smil has argued, quite convincingly in my opinion, that the growth of the services sector and the decline in manufacturing as not two sides of the same coin, and need not be viewed as such. Public policy directed at counteracting the negative effects of industrial policy in the developing world (looking at you and your state subsidies for unprofitable factories, China) would result in more manufacturing, and more manufacturing jobs, in the United States.
We can, and should, have *both* increasing automation in our factories and job growth in the manufacturing sector.
3
Where to start... Maybe the idea that the increase in the value of goods tells us that job losses were due to automation. An economy that makes airplanes, computer chips, medical equipment and advanced materials is going to look pretty good but we are left with high-value-added products because that's all we can make and be competitive. What is missing is several layers of manufactured products that are not made here now because you can't hire anyone for 50-cents an hour. Factories that moved off-shore couldn't afford to automate around the labor cost differential (not to mention lack of environmental controls, safety regulations, labor laws, etc.). Remember that Walmart had a team that helped American manufacturers relocate to China - and Walmart buyers that gave them no choice. When American politicians decided it was just fine to bargain away American worker's standard of living in order to get cheap products in return, they doomed a big part of the middle-class to near-poverty, removed an established path upward, and began the massive transfer of wealth to the top. And the biggest effect has been on supply chains...it's not just the plant making appliances, it's the plastics suppliers, injection molding machine vendors, wire harness makers, coatings and metals manufacturers. The hollowing out of upper-midwest manufacturing is really the story of the suppliers - they were competitive but lost their markets. It's as complicated as it is unfair.
9
The range of ignorance demonstrated in these comments illustrates why our politicians can get away with the rhetoric. Suggest all, including the author, read Bessen"s book "Learning by Doing, the Real Connection Between Wages, Innovation and Wealth"
3
Great article. It is mistaken to think bringing the kind of manufacturing we had back to the US, the author is right that part of this desire stems from the nostalgia of post war America. That world will no longer exist because the norms of my mothers childhood will never exist because of globalization ( that dirty word) and increased technological innovation. We are still productive but the factories we have now rely less on labor. Assigning blame or trying to repeat a time we consider more tranquil or ideal is erroneous. We need to accept reality and make sure all players in our new economy are treated fairly.
2
The article should have provided more detail on the nature of current manufacturing. Most of us realize that robotic-staffed factories are the future. But we also know that there are national security concerns related to the nature of manufacturing. Are we making enough steel? Enough advanced alloys? Have we lost electronic manufacturing capability? Then we can proceed to the question of how to provide meaningful, satisfying work for the high percentage of the population that doesn't want to write code or serve French fries. And yes, maybe we need to divert dollars from the "Farm Bill" to the "Manufacturing Employees Rescue Fund" for a transition period.
4
Politicians like generals fight the last war. America needs a new set of political leaders who are goal oriented consensus building using real research to propose and achieve the changes we need to survive as a country. I think Mrs. Clinton could be closer to the ideal, but the leaders of the other party, at this time, will not cooperate as we have seen for the last eight years. It is hard to know how a public revolution in involvement could be organized to reate conditions for effective governance.
3
The love politicians show for manufacturing these days approaches the love politicians once showed for "family farms" 25-30 years ago, even as family farms continued to disappeared under the growing consolidation of agribusiness.
This current attachment to manufacturing belies a hard truth: that the United States never had an industrial policy, which in the aftermath of World War II was increasingly made evident with the strides that Japan, the EEC/EU, and other nations made. In those areas, the state entered into varying degrees of collaboration with labor and capital to put together an industrial policy with which it would engage the world.
Meanwhile, in the United States, those three entities engaged in conflict (often with labor getting the worst of it and capital emerging victorious). Our nation's attachment to trade policy in the postwar era, tax reforms that contributed to capital flight, and the lack of an industrial policy have all led to the severe decline of sectors like steel, electronics, and auto manufacturing since WWII, while other sectors (shoes, pottery, textiles and apparel) have virtually disappeared.
To move forward, governments are going to have to get out of the "shell game" of offering incentives to companies that play states, counties, and cities against each other. It's time for labor, capital, and the state to get together and create labor policies that work equitably AND a national manufacturing policy designed for steady, long-term growth.
This current attachment to manufacturing belies a hard truth: that the United States never had an industrial policy, which in the aftermath of World War II was increasingly made evident with the strides that Japan, the EEC/EU, and other nations made. In those areas, the state entered into varying degrees of collaboration with labor and capital to put together an industrial policy with which it would engage the world.
Meanwhile, in the United States, those three entities engaged in conflict (often with labor getting the worst of it and capital emerging victorious). Our nation's attachment to trade policy in the postwar era, tax reforms that contributed to capital flight, and the lack of an industrial policy have all led to the severe decline of sectors like steel, electronics, and auto manufacturing since WWII, while other sectors (shoes, pottery, textiles and apparel) have virtually disappeared.
To move forward, governments are going to have to get out of the "shell game" of offering incentives to companies that play states, counties, and cities against each other. It's time for labor, capital, and the state to get together and create labor policies that work equitably AND a national manufacturing policy designed for steady, long-term growth.
5
Obsessed? It is no coincidence that since the Reagan era and his creation of supply side economics, he, along with the Republican party systematically went out of their way to, in any order you want to place it, dismantle unions and ultimately the manufacturing jobs that disappeared with them. Along with all of that came stagnation of wages, the gradual decline of the middle class and the most significant inequality in America in 35 years.
Most of the manufacturing jobs will probably never return, however, they built a middle class in the country and paid a decent wage. Service jobs will never do that, hence, an overall lowering of the standard of living and unacceptable.
Most of the manufacturing jobs will probably never return, however, they built a middle class in the country and paid a decent wage. Service jobs will never do that, hence, an overall lowering of the standard of living and unacceptable.
6
Trump is all about the money... he does not care if fellow Americans die while on the job.
4
The two main factors of manufacturing production - - - capital and labor - - - were once roughly in balance. Today capital is s much more important factor than labor. Most recent technological advances in manufacturing are aimed squarely at reducing the need for labor, the most easily avoided expense factor. The money for that technology was provided by capital markets. Many corporations doubled down by outsourcing productive jobs to low-wage countries.
Today capital creates wealth through technology, and capital reaps the rewards. That is not going to change. The restraint on capital will come from the consumption side, when human demand for manufactured products goes slack because of reduced human incomes. That, plus the capitalist tendency to add more and more capacity, will depress prices. Example: China has recently built a steel industry that alone can supply all the world's need for steel. But the rest of the world still has steel industries, too. No one is making money now in the steel biz.
Today capital creates wealth through technology, and capital reaps the rewards. That is not going to change. The restraint on capital will come from the consumption side, when human demand for manufactured products goes slack because of reduced human incomes. That, plus the capitalist tendency to add more and more capacity, will depress prices. Example: China has recently built a steel industry that alone can supply all the world's need for steel. But the rest of the world still has steel industries, too. No one is making money now in the steel biz.
2
The classic answer is multiplier effects: manufacturing has much greater stimulative effects in terms of other service jobs and other economic activities. This is why development economists, whatever their other sins, tend to place so much emphasis on manufacturing as the engine of economic growth. I suppose we are experimenting with whether an economy can grow better paying jobs if manufacturing is largely automated and most people are in personal and financial services.
10
The arguments by commentators (and somewhat by the author) focus on elements of our past that aren't coming back. Some service industries pay very well and aren't able to be outsourced or done by a robot. Electricians, plumbers, mechanics, etc. Most service jobs pay poorly because they do not 'add value', and, as Jonathan said, have a high elasticity of demand. We are NOT going to resolve these issues by staying inside this 'box'. We need a massive re-think of the paradigm.
Here are three resources that will enable us to start a different conversation.
1. The Citizen's Share. Blasi, Freeman and Kruse.
2. The New Inequality. RB Freeman
3. With Liberty and Dividends for All. P. Barnes
Second, we need a Marshall Plan for America that focuses on our children from conception to adulthood. Our system of child raising needs massive help in the bottom 2/3rds, socially and economically speaking. Our social mobility is rigid, almost frozen, just below Britain.
Our education system is paralyzed and broken for the poor and middle class of all races (bureaucratic and unionized). Our inner cities are cesspools of hopelessness, and therefore, drugs and crime. Some are beginning to revive.
The Trump phenomenon says "You, USA, don't have much more time to re-invent yourselves." The studies showing more and more MEN dropping out and not working are a massive "Cry In The Wilderness" and it WILL be heard, one way or another. How? The choice is ours.
Here are three resources that will enable us to start a different conversation.
1. The Citizen's Share. Blasi, Freeman and Kruse.
2. The New Inequality. RB Freeman
3. With Liberty and Dividends for All. P. Barnes
Second, we need a Marshall Plan for America that focuses on our children from conception to adulthood. Our system of child raising needs massive help in the bottom 2/3rds, socially and economically speaking. Our social mobility is rigid, almost frozen, just below Britain.
Our education system is paralyzed and broken for the poor and middle class of all races (bureaucratic and unionized). Our inner cities are cesspools of hopelessness, and therefore, drugs and crime. Some are beginning to revive.
The Trump phenomenon says "You, USA, don't have much more time to re-invent yourselves." The studies showing more and more MEN dropping out and not working are a massive "Cry In The Wilderness" and it WILL be heard, one way or another. How? The choice is ours.
9
It is hard for unions to gain a foothold when too many jobs are outsourced and too many jobs are taken by immigrants.
2
Politicians just love making promises, especially promises they can't keep before adoring crowds who don't know any better. People still see manufacturing as the panacea for everything that ails our society, while forgetting or (having never experienced manufacturing) the drudgery, filth, and danger created by hanging around giant machines banging outs parts, with raw materials inserted by hand into areas where machine parts slamming together create forces capable of costing a person and hand, an arm, or if the person is especially unlucky, a life. We'd all be better off to leave the actual manufacture of things to mostly machines, with humans performing the roles of inspector or rejector, which is to greta degree the human role now. Forget the past. It's gone. You're better off flipping burgers, although substantially better pay and benefits are needed to kick off any appreciable economic growth and employee fulfillment.
2
It is a very bad idea to have a significant percentage of the population sitting idle. Worse, it is a very DANGEROUS idea to have a significant percentage of young adult males sitting idle. If it is not manufacturing, fine, but we need to find jobs for people. Please don't say we could afford to put half the population on the dole. If we have money for that, let's please find something actually productive for them to do. Please, people, let's think.
26
In one of his memoirs, Billy Chrystal, the actor, recounts that, as a young boy, he went to see the movie "Shane". Chrystal's dad was a jazz aficionado and producer. The late, great Billie Holiday had accompanied the younger Chrystal to the matinee showing.
At the end of the movie the wounded Shane rides off into the sunset with the young Brandon DeWilde character running after him shouting "Shane! Shane! Come back, Shane!"
Lady Day leaned over and whispered to young Chrystal: "Son, he ain't never coming back no mo'."
And, I fear, neither are all those off-shored manufacturing jobs.
Trump's tongue-in-cheek "populism" is no match for the Establishment GOP's authentic, diehard globalism--as is already quite evident.
At the end of the movie the wounded Shane rides off into the sunset with the young Brandon DeWilde character running after him shouting "Shane! Shane! Come back, Shane!"
Lady Day leaned over and whispered to young Chrystal: "Son, he ain't never coming back no mo'."
And, I fear, neither are all those off-shored manufacturing jobs.
Trump's tongue-in-cheek "populism" is no match for the Establishment GOP's authentic, diehard globalism--as is already quite evident.
8
nobody talks about where half those manufacturing jobs went: prison. they're not actually in Bangladesh or Indonesia or China anymore, they're right here in the good old USA, except the minimum wage is around 27 cents an hour and the employees get to work as a "privilege."
62
Service jobs are shifting to prisons as well.
1
Any prisoner work as you call it the revenues get go to the state. The US prison manufacturing sector amounts to a grain of sand on a beech.
1
Union losses have been heaviest in the auto, steel, and coal industries. Those have moved to prisons?
Why Are Politicians So Obsessed With Manufacturing Hot Air ?
Because manufacturing hot air is what politicians do.
And no politician produces more hot air than Herr Trump:
"We're going to start winning again. We're going to win so much. We're going to win at every level. We're going to win economically. We're going to win with the economy. We're going to win with the military. We're going to win with health care and for our veterans. We're going to win with every single facet."
"We're going to win so much you may even get tired of winning, and you'll say, 'Please, please -- it's too much winning. We can't take it anymore. Mr. President -- it's too much.' And I'll say, 'No it isn't. We have to keep winning. We have to win more. We're going to win more. We're going to win so much.'"
TRUMP 2016: Let's Turn America Into Helium Gas
Because manufacturing hot air is what politicians do.
And no politician produces more hot air than Herr Trump:
"We're going to start winning again. We're going to win so much. We're going to win at every level. We're going to win economically. We're going to win with the economy. We're going to win with the military. We're going to win with health care and for our veterans. We're going to win with every single facet."
"We're going to win so much you may even get tired of winning, and you'll say, 'Please, please -- it's too much winning. We can't take it anymore. Mr. President -- it's too much.' And I'll say, 'No it isn't. We have to keep winning. We have to win more. We're going to win more. We're going to win so much.'"
TRUMP 2016: Let's Turn America Into Helium Gas
21
Clinton 2016: Peddling Influence Since 1979
Thoroughly disconnected, utterly bourgeois, ecstatically self-righteous.
The problem with service work is that it has high elasticity of demand compared to manufacturing. If prices at restaurants get too high, people will buy groceries and eat at home. On the other hand, if you need a screwdriver, you have to go to the hardware store and pay the going price. This is why the pay in the service industries is marginal; they need to offer cheap services in order to make a sale.
29
With all due respect, kindly inform the health care insurance industry as well as Visa, Mastercard, the bankers, brokers and money managers - all of whom seldom, if ever, have risked their lives on the job.
2
Not entirely true. Just check out Yelp. Tons of restaurants/plumbers/dentists receive tons of ratings all the time. Those who provide a good service can charge more.
1
You mean like the cheap screwdriver?
1
Why are politicians obsessed with manufacturing?
The politicians who allowed manufacturing to be outsourced overseas had NO GAME PLAN whatsoever for what would happen to our economy when the jobs were gone. They know it and we know it.
The politicians who are promising a prosperous economy based on taxing the rich all know that you can't have a prosperous economy based on taxation alone. Prosperity depends on producing something tangible. They know it and we know it.
None of them have an answer as to what to do about the mess we find ourselves in - an economy based on low paying service jobs that can almost all be replaced by a robot. So they yammer on about manufacturing in the vain hope that people will be duped in to thinking that they are addressing the problem. But there is no good solution. They know it and we know it.
The politicians who allowed manufacturing to be outsourced overseas had NO GAME PLAN whatsoever for what would happen to our economy when the jobs were gone. They know it and we know it.
The politicians who are promising a prosperous economy based on taxing the rich all know that you can't have a prosperous economy based on taxation alone. Prosperity depends on producing something tangible. They know it and we know it.
None of them have an answer as to what to do about the mess we find ourselves in - an economy based on low paying service jobs that can almost all be replaced by a robot. So they yammer on about manufacturing in the vain hope that people will be duped in to thinking that they are addressing the problem. But there is no good solution. They know it and we know it.
89
"an economy based on low paying service jobs that can almost all be replaced by a robot."
But high paying union manufacturing jobs for functional illiterate, featherbedding high school graduates can be even more easily replaced by automation.
But high paying union manufacturing jobs for functional illiterate, featherbedding high school graduates can be even more easily replaced by automation.
You are absolutely right about everything you say in your first paragraph, but you are wrong about service jobs and automation. For the most part, it is neither economically worthwhile nor technically feasible to automate most service jobs. It's one thing to automate fast food production, which is both controlled by well capitalized franchises and highly standardized by its nature. It's another thing to automate nursing, home healthcare, childcare, and nursing home care. Certain cleaning jobs, such as turning around hotel rooms, are also beyond the abilities of today's technology, at least not without massive disruption in room and furnishing design. These are important jobs, and the need for them is not going to go away. As this article points out, we need to treat the people who do this kind of work a lot better than we do.
1
I find this claim misleading:
"From an economic perspective, however, there can be no revival of American manufacturing, because there has been no collapse...the value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after adjusting for inflation."
The total 'value of stuff' made in America (manufacturing output) does not seem to me like a good measure. If output remains constant, and GDP expands each year (which it does), and population expands each year (which it does), then manufacturing declines as a share of GDP, and per capita.
In fact manufacturing has been declining as a share of GDP since the 1970s - 80s. Isn't this a collapse?
Another problem for the rosy scenario -- the domestic service sector does nothing for our balance of trade.
But sure, let's have a federal minimum wage for home health care providers. Good luck getting that through congress.
"From an economic perspective, however, there can be no revival of American manufacturing, because there has been no collapse...the value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after adjusting for inflation."
The total 'value of stuff' made in America (manufacturing output) does not seem to me like a good measure. If output remains constant, and GDP expands each year (which it does), and population expands each year (which it does), then manufacturing declines as a share of GDP, and per capita.
In fact manufacturing has been declining as a share of GDP since the 1970s - 80s. Isn't this a collapse?
Another problem for the rosy scenario -- the domestic service sector does nothing for our balance of trade.
But sure, let's have a federal minimum wage for home health care providers. Good luck getting that through congress.
52
"In fact manufacturing has been declining as a share of GDP since the 1970s - 80s. Isn't this a collapse?"
If you ignore the tech sector, sure. But trillions of dollars has been made in industries that did not exist 20 years ago, much less 40. Of course the percentage has shrunk, other industries have come into existence and exploded in the past 20 years.
Apple was founded in 1976 and didn't grow into the behemoth it was until the 2000s, Verizon wasn't founded until 1983; Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Oracle are all about 40 years old and earn billions in revenue, employing hundreds of thousands of people.
Sure, manufacturing as a percentage has declined over the past 40 years, but that's because the trillion dollar industries have sprung to life since then.
If you ignore the tech sector, sure. But trillions of dollars has been made in industries that did not exist 20 years ago, much less 40. Of course the percentage has shrunk, other industries have come into existence and exploded in the past 20 years.
Apple was founded in 1976 and didn't grow into the behemoth it was until the 2000s, Verizon wasn't founded until 1983; Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Oracle are all about 40 years old and earn billions in revenue, employing hundreds of thousands of people.
Sure, manufacturing as a percentage has declined over the past 40 years, but that's because the trillion dollar industries have sprung to life since then.
No, it's not a collapse as long as it was planned, which it was, just as the number of people involved in agriculture has steadily declined. Does anyone ever refer to the "collapse" of agriculture in the U.S.?
1
> "the value of **stuff** made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after adjusting for inflation"
Author didn't specify what he meant by "stuff", but I am guessing he meant one of the G_P's, maybe GDP, I doubt it meant "Manufactured-Goods"
OR MAYBE, when he said "record high" meant something like highest in the 5 years or something
We certainly never made 'more stuff' than during WWII when the US, with a largely female workforce made absolutely mind-boggling numbers of Tanks, Jeeps, Ships, Fighters & Bombers, PLUS Bombs, Ammunition, parachutes, Army C-Rations, & etc {index all that stuff for inflation in current dollars}
* * * *
MY GUESS, is that this delusional author is including "Financial Products", Pharmaceuticals, and other items that primarily benefit the 1%
Author didn't specify what he meant by "stuff", but I am guessing he meant one of the G_P's, maybe GDP, I doubt it meant "Manufactured-Goods"
OR MAYBE, when he said "record high" meant something like highest in the 5 years or something
We certainly never made 'more stuff' than during WWII when the US, with a largely female workforce made absolutely mind-boggling numbers of Tanks, Jeeps, Ships, Fighters & Bombers, PLUS Bombs, Ammunition, parachutes, Army C-Rations, & etc {index all that stuff for inflation in current dollars}
* * * *
MY GUESS, is that this delusional author is including "Financial Products", Pharmaceuticals, and other items that primarily benefit the 1%
Excellent article. Nice to see someone emphasize the unique nature of post-WWII USA -- the rest of the industrial world was destroyed so of course we were number one! That ain't coming back...we most ardently hope!
Also great to see interesting observations backed up by good measurements. Very thought-provoking.
Also great to see interesting observations backed up by good measurements. Very thought-provoking.
33
Agree ... totally contrary to the conventional wisdom ... Times editors, please explore this more thoroughly ... if it is true, the political debate needs a rethink.
The obsession with manufacturing jobs has everything to do with upward mobility and economic prosperity at the entry level. In the postwar years the ability for a returning GI to go to college or go work in a factory, mill or other "blue collar" job that allowed for a living wage and the ability to provide for a family that could move up. As the destroyed economies of Europe and Japan came back on-line, china slowly emerged and automation created economic competition the entry level job market migrated to disposable positions that don't offer benefits or a living wage. When combined with the costs of living rising disproportionately it becomes next to impossible to be poor, which fuels an ongoing negative cycle that makes upward mobility impossible. This lack of upward mobility is what kills hope and that is what candidates are feeding on, they are creating a false hope that a unicorn will come by and create good entry level jobs that allow for stability and upward mobility. In a way it is irresponsible to promise something that you have no ability to or a plan to actually deliver but that is politics.
42
One of the reasons that the manufacturing jobs allowed for upward mobility was because of the unions. Unions are missing in places like Walmart, so a million employees work at minimal wages, while the owners hoard the profits.
4
This is one of the best columns on this topic in a long time, and I totally agree that the lion's share of America's working class engaged in service work has been neglected in the political discourse.
Too, though, there has been a studied indifference to the importance of the manufacturing sector as an activity that produces added value to raw or semi processed goods. And producing added-value means producing new wealth within our borders. This is a good thing - even if the workforce employed doing so continues to shrink due to new efficiencies and automation. More domestic manufacturing can also help reduce our trade deficit.
Too, though, there has been a studied indifference to the importance of the manufacturing sector as an activity that produces added value to raw or semi processed goods. And producing added-value means producing new wealth within our borders. This is a good thing - even if the workforce employed doing so continues to shrink due to new efficiencies and automation. More domestic manufacturing can also help reduce our trade deficit.
17
If the country could ever move to government-provided healthcare (like the rest of the world's industrialized nations) it could help to lower the cost of the American workforce and spur a revival of manufacturing work.
106
Yes, but in order to offer low-cost healthcare, wouldn't somebody's salary have to be cut? If the government just spends the same $3 trillion were now spending, there's no cut in the cost, just a different way of paying.
4
No. Healthcare should not be tied to a job; it should not be an employment "benefit"; rather, it should be government-based (expand Medicare, and introduce real cost-controls and fraud prevention). Providing healthcare increases the cost of doing business and places American businesses at a competitive disadvantage to most of the rest of the industrialized world where healthcare is provided by government. If businesses did not have to provide healthcare to their employees, there could and should be an increase in salary (here, I speak from experience). Universal healthcare can and should be paid for by increases in taxes of the absurdly wealthy who obtained that wealth in part by taking advantage of opportunities not (never) available to the rest of society. Call it the cost of attaining absurd wealth. Tired of the middle- and lower-classes of paying for most everything in society. (Also, increases in the taxes of the absurdly wealthy should also mean ensuring that they actually pay taxes, not only raising the rates of taxation.). Just sayin' . . .
8
Johnathan:
Actually, no. Instead of having yourself and your employer, assuming they even provide health care, have to direct thousands towards private health insurers premiums, with universal health care, other than maybe provide a few additional perks that the system would not cover, your employer would then be off the hook for all that extra cost, individuals would certainly pay more in taxes, however, overall aside from the piece of mind, financially, everyone would end up ahead of the game.
Actually, no. Instead of having yourself and your employer, assuming they even provide health care, have to direct thousands towards private health insurers premiums, with universal health care, other than maybe provide a few additional perks that the system would not cover, your employer would then be off the hook for all that extra cost, individuals would certainly pay more in taxes, however, overall aside from the piece of mind, financially, everyone would end up ahead of the game.
2
Why is a reporter writing an editorial? Or is this a report-atorial?
9
It's a column in the Magazine, not a news article. Columns by definition include opinions of the writer.
Hello Rustyrustbelt,
I will try to describe what "the past" means to us if anyone were to trouble to unpack it.
Isn't it normal to write a memoir and dabble one's toes in the rippling stream of consciousness past? But this is only if one is not from an industrial town but something a less with littered with realtors' red lines. It's good if you recall a scenic background for your childhood (kind of Rick Steves meets F. Scott Fitzgerald.) Then talk about all those social difficulties in growing up (sort of J. D. Salinger and William F. Buckley.)
But if one of your "poor choices" were to have been born in a steel mill town, then don't think you can write about it, no matter how many writing classes you may take in the local community college. That is why, my friendly readers--and I do appreciate your patience--we have started to collect stories for Children of Steel, that short fiction project by people who grew up or lived/worked in steel mill communities. Also the new group at the Modern Language Association called "Rust Belt Literature."
Imagine how we "Children of Steel" feel when letter after letter insists to people from industrial towns that they must delete their pasts. Think about that statement. Could some of you take a moment to delete the past in your own life just as a little creative writing exercise?
I will try to describe what "the past" means to us if anyone were to trouble to unpack it.
Isn't it normal to write a memoir and dabble one's toes in the rippling stream of consciousness past? But this is only if one is not from an industrial town but something a less with littered with realtors' red lines. It's good if you recall a scenic background for your childhood (kind of Rick Steves meets F. Scott Fitzgerald.) Then talk about all those social difficulties in growing up (sort of J. D. Salinger and William F. Buckley.)
But if one of your "poor choices" were to have been born in a steel mill town, then don't think you can write about it, no matter how many writing classes you may take in the local community college. That is why, my friendly readers--and I do appreciate your patience--we have started to collect stories for Children of Steel, that short fiction project by people who grew up or lived/worked in steel mill communities. Also the new group at the Modern Language Association called "Rust Belt Literature."
Imagine how we "Children of Steel" feel when letter after letter insists to people from industrial towns that they must delete their pasts. Think about that statement. Could some of you take a moment to delete the past in your own life just as a little creative writing exercise?
1
So lets see if we can "pencil this out".
say in 1960 a large scale industrial factory had a worker who's lifetime(salary/benefits/pension/SS tax/etc.) "direct cost" was $300,000 and in that period the worker produced $850,000 of value.(I think those numbers are reasonable, put in your own if you want.) So the gross margin was $550,000 which paid for costs of raw materials, return of capital, plant management, insurance, investment in R and D, insurance, etc. lets say the net profit was $100,000, about 33% of the cost of the worker
Moving forward to today, a similar more automated factory worker has a direct cost of $4.2M and produces $16M of value. And now the net profit is $2M about 48% of the cost of the worker.
Now, if the social order of the 1960 was stable and investment capital was available to entrepreneurs with just 33% of worker cost going to profit, why isn't that good enough today? Economic benefit isn't needed by automated robots, it's needed by people. People should share in the productivity that automation creates because without people benefiting there's no purpose in creating automation.
say in 1960 a large scale industrial factory had a worker who's lifetime(salary/benefits/pension/SS tax/etc.) "direct cost" was $300,000 and in that period the worker produced $850,000 of value.(I think those numbers are reasonable, put in your own if you want.) So the gross margin was $550,000 which paid for costs of raw materials, return of capital, plant management, insurance, investment in R and D, insurance, etc. lets say the net profit was $100,000, about 33% of the cost of the worker
Moving forward to today, a similar more automated factory worker has a direct cost of $4.2M and produces $16M of value. And now the net profit is $2M about 48% of the cost of the worker.
Now, if the social order of the 1960 was stable and investment capital was available to entrepreneurs with just 33% of worker cost going to profit, why isn't that good enough today? Economic benefit isn't needed by automated robots, it's needed by people. People should share in the productivity that automation creates because without people benefiting there's no purpose in creating automation.
93
Since 1920 and the word "robot''s invention in the science fiction play RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Capek, the issue of what to do with workers displaced by automation has been tossed around. In Capek's scientific drama the robots eventually learned to do without any humans (including the financier class.) When robots weigh up the cost-benefit ratio of continuing to feed and maintain a horde of useless mammals, it turns out that no one in the world is so irreplaceable not to be terminated.
As a science fiction reader I see that these prospects are so depressing that much of what is called SF has retreated to medieval-like planets and their court intrigues. Literature either gives society something to think about or in a variety of modes posits a golden age when nature was pure and life was simpler.
As a science fiction reader I see that these prospects are so depressing that much of what is called SF has retreated to medieval-like planets and their court intrigues. Literature either gives society something to think about or in a variety of modes posits a golden age when nature was pure and life was simpler.
1
This is a really good framing of the argument. I think that you can continue it to observe that people *do* share in the productivity--they get it in the ability to purchase much more sophisticated goods at much lower prices. The value (that is, benefits divided by price) of a television, or car, or telephone, or any other manufactured good today is astronomically higher than it was in 1960. Imagine if you could even attempt to make a factory in 1960 to build a Jetta, or an iPhone, or an HDTV--what would that product have to cost in order for the manufacturing to be profitable? That's where people see the benefit.
Whether that's a worthwhile balance of outcomes (unstable service jobs with poor benefits that might not pay a living wage, but the ability to buy a lot of amazing stuff for really low prices) is a different question. But I think the economic argument holds up.
Whether that's a worthwhile balance of outcomes (unstable service jobs with poor benefits that might not pay a living wage, but the ability to buy a lot of amazing stuff for really low prices) is a different question. But I think the economic argument holds up.
1
Ah, but if the shareholders don't get every cent of what "analysts" project, it matters not whether a company makes an excellent product, and that company finds it hard to (1) raise capital for legitimate needs (expansion, new product, tooling), and (2) becomes "unfashionable" for investors.
Companies have become commodities, just like pork bellies and prostitutes' private parts.
Companies have become commodities, just like pork bellies and prostitutes' private parts.
Today manufacturing image and brand is more valued than manufacturing product or substance. Trump is a case in point--he has manufactured an image of himself as a competent leader who is concerned with jobs when, in fact, even his popular TV "show" was premised on firing people.
13
My grandfather's generation really knew how to make and fix things. The trendy DIY ethic that we have now was the default condition for most men and women! from that era.
I think the practical hand skills or competency for a culture that makes or manufactures for their livelihood is invaluable; a society that doesn't care about craft (outsources all significant manufacturing to low cost labor countries) is what I think about when we talk about the loss of manufacturing.
Small scale artisans are bringing manufacturing back into culture but this seems to be too niche of a segment of society. I hope we can incentivize a new generation of makers and manufacturers so that DIY is not just a hipster trend.
I think the practical hand skills or competency for a culture that makes or manufactures for their livelihood is invaluable; a society that doesn't care about craft (outsources all significant manufacturing to low cost labor countries) is what I think about when we talk about the loss of manufacturing.
Small scale artisans are bringing manufacturing back into culture but this seems to be too niche of a segment of society. I hope we can incentivize a new generation of makers and manufacturers so that DIY is not just a hipster trend.
38
I agree, Posey's Future. My parents grew up in the Depression, they were of the WW2 generation that took pride in resourcefulness, ingenuity, creativity, invention, economy of resources and craftsmanship. Today's measure seems to be the opposite: effete pride in lack of practical skills, waste of resources, wealth enough to pay others to do what you cannot. Well, sooner or later, this will collapse and let's hope the reaped whirlwind isn't as ugly as the French Revolution or Mad Max. Either way, it's those who know how to do and make things that will again inherit the earth.
1
Posey's Future - Thanks for your comment and I agree about the beauty and importance of craft. But it's my impression that, as long as people can buy a mass-produced commodity much more cheaply and with much higher tolerances (and, let's face it, with more R&D innovation behind it) than a craft-made product, they will - meaning that the demand side will not provide the incentive you hope for.
I was surprised to read in this column that we're making more than ever here in the U.S. - I thought the contemporary refrain is "we don't make anything any more." If there truly has been no production collapse then I don't see a reversal of manufacturing efficiency - and I know that's a dirty word from the human standpoint - being forced on the industrial sector (which I think would represent a supply-side incentive) in order to recreate the lost jobs.
So we're making things and our jobs are of the service type. That relegates craft to the domain of hobbies. I ask the following without knowing the answer: If that's true, is it bad?
I was surprised to read in this column that we're making more than ever here in the U.S. - I thought the contemporary refrain is "we don't make anything any more." If there truly has been no production collapse then I don't see a reversal of manufacturing efficiency - and I know that's a dirty word from the human standpoint - being forced on the industrial sector (which I think would represent a supply-side incentive) in order to recreate the lost jobs.
So we're making things and our jobs are of the service type. That relegates craft to the domain of hobbies. I ask the following without knowing the answer: If that's true, is it bad?
I see a lot of comments like this, and I don't necessarily agree. Not everyone born circa 1900 was a tinkerer/ handyman type at all. My relatives from that time were not. I also would not encourage anyone to think that most people can make a realistic living from Etsy-type storefronts, etc. Most people can't.
1
Here are 8 reasons U.S. manufacturing is great for America
1) Manufacturing creates strong middle-class jobs
Average pay is $77,500 per year including benefits and 95% of the jobs come with health insurance.
2) Manufacturing creates a wealth and innovation ecosystem for a nation
U.S. manufacturing generates 75% of private-sector research and development.
3) Manufacturing is critical during wars.
4) U.S. factories are the clean ones, and thus better for planet
1) Manufacturing creates strong middle-class jobs
Average pay is $77,500 per year including benefits and 95% of the jobs come with health insurance.
2) Manufacturing creates a wealth and innovation ecosystem for a nation
U.S. manufacturing generates 75% of private-sector research and development.
3) Manufacturing is critical during wars.
4) U.S. factories are the clean ones, and thus better for planet
82
I agree, alex. Except that Americans expect the unreasonably low price of cheap imports, so as is, the only way to compete economically with Asia is to lower our labor and environmental standards to their level. I don't want to live in a third-world type country with dirty air, polluted water, ransacked natural resources and slave labor wages. So I think what's really needed to level the playing field is not to lower our standards, but to demand that other nations raise theirs. Global economic, environmental and labor justice is the ethical and practical solution for our country AND the world.
At the same time, we all need to consume less disposable stuff, think quality over quantity. And the lower the global population, the more people have the opportunity to live well.
At the same time, we all need to consume less disposable stuff, think quality over quantity. And the lower the global population, the more people have the opportunity to live well.
Regarding your last remark, evidently you are not including animal and/or meat processing factories.
"Manufacturing creates strong middle-class jobs
Average pay is $77,500 per year including benefits and 95% of the jobs come with health insurance."
Well ... it used to be.
Auto companies HAVE built new plants in right-to-work states. The unions have negotiated contracts that mean the new hirees will NEVER make the salary level of beginning wages of workers 30 years ago.
The goals has been to at least preserve some of the benes.
Average pay is $77,500 per year including benefits and 95% of the jobs come with health insurance."
Well ... it used to be.
Auto companies HAVE built new plants in right-to-work states. The unions have negotiated contracts that mean the new hirees will NEVER make the salary level of beginning wages of workers 30 years ago.
The goals has been to at least preserve some of the benes.
"voting patterns have been disrupted in the parts of the country that lost the most jobs to trade with China. The study, which focused on congressional elections, found that voters in those areas have tended toward ideological extremes."
If people who lost their jobs to trade with China voted one way, and people who buy stuff made in China because it's cheaper voted the other way, it would be the biggest landslide in the history of the US.
If people who lost their jobs to trade with China voted one way, and people who buy stuff made in China because it's cheaper voted the other way, it would be the biggest landslide in the history of the US.
3
Three reasons: First, as the author notes, there is nostalgia for truly better times when white, high school educated workers made good money and could afford some luxury (regular vacations, health care, parochial schools, even vacation cabins), even with assembly-line pay. Voters of that demographic, especially White males, are now barely getting by. Politicians tap that nostalgia and now anxiety as a way to entice voters to vote for them. Second, as difficult as it is to bring back large-scale basic manufacturing, SOME high-skill, small-scale manufacturing can and does occur in America and the people with those jobs earn decent incomes without traditional college academic educations. Many working-class white males believe they can luck out and break into such "new" manufacturing that will give them a comfortable lifestyle. Politicians target that dream by focusing on high-tech, high-skill, small-factory manufacturing, even if those jobs are limited. Third, it is really, really hard to make low-wage, unskilled service jobs pay well, and society is unlikely to vote for government programs to pay for such service workers' healthcare, retirements, etc. out of taxes. Many of the same White (and, honestly, minority) workers who need those benefits the most would see them as welfare giveaways. So, we remain stuck dreaming of the day when Americans will build high-tech solar panels, batteries, ball bearings, or even just iPhones for $30-plus an hour.
9
It's kinda sad -- and pretty racist -- that you think it was all WHITE folks benefitting.
Some of the BIGGEST beneficiaries of the post war economy were blacks -- who came up north from Alabama and Mississippi and other Jim Crow states to take good paying jobs in the auto and steel industry. That was, in part, why they CAME -- good paying jobs with benefits.
And who has been hit hardest by the decline? and by massive illegal immigration? Not middle class white folks; they largely adapted. It was poor and working class black families, especially the men.
Some of the BIGGEST beneficiaries of the post war economy were blacks -- who came up north from Alabama and Mississippi and other Jim Crow states to take good paying jobs in the auto and steel industry. That was, in part, why they CAME -- good paying jobs with benefits.
And who has been hit hardest by the decline? and by massive illegal immigration? Not middle class white folks; they largely adapted. It was poor and working class black families, especially the men.
3
"But the value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after adjusting for inflation. The present moment, in other words, is the most productive in the nation’s history."
Is all that 'value' going into CEO and executive salaries?
Is all that 'value' going into CEO and executive salaries?
145
Units of production or value added?
One has to wonder what exactly is being measured.
By the mid seventies when the steel industry collapsed, the mills in Pittsburgh and Cleveland were close to one hundred years old, antiquated and labor intensive. When foreign mills came online, they were modern, equally or more productive and less labor intensive than ours. Any new mills in this country would be state of the art and few jobs created.
25
Automation in manufacturing and the U.S. shift toward more of a service economy have both been around for many years. The first assembly line robot appeared in 1961 and in the 1970s General Motors began its big push toward extensive automation. At the same time, the U.S. economy was already more of a service economy than a manufacturing one and Japan was becoming an increasing power in both the automobile and electronics industries. It has been obvious for many years that jobs in U.S. manufacturing and the manufacturing sector itself have been declining. Anyone who chose that area as a career path made a bad choice. I believe that most of Trump's supporters are people who failed to do their homework and made poor life choices. They continue to make bad choices by supporting Trump and expecting him to correct their bad choices by bringing back a time when jobs in manufacturing were plentiful, something that is never coming back.
8
It is extremely simplistic to say that "all Trump supporters" are idiots who used to be autoworkers in Detroit, and who could not see the rise of Japanese competition or industrial robots.
That is not even remotely what happened. And Trump supporters come form every strata of the economy.
Cars are still made and slapped with US corporate logos -- but if you look at the paperwork, you will see they are made in Canada, Mexico and other places and the parts often come from China. It's not like we stopped building CARS -- we stopped making them with US workers and US parts.
That is not even remotely what happened. And Trump supporters come form every strata of the economy.
Cars are still made and slapped with US corporate logos -- but if you look at the paperwork, you will see they are made in Canada, Mexico and other places and the parts often come from China. It's not like we stopped building CARS -- we stopped making them with US workers and US parts.
4
Anyone who has called for tech support knows it's not only manufacturing jobs which are being shipped out of the country.
163
Modern life depends on the production and further development of manufactured products. By surrendering that vital process to other nations we lose our position as a leader in the furthering of human progress and dignity. It is quite that simple.
94
Thank you Donald; and for that matter,
if they make steel in China, textiles in Chile,
and cars in Mexico...we surely can make those
things here stateside and provide our own
citizens a stable path to middle class.
What?! domestic manufacturing can't compete
with low wages offshore. Well then, take Detroit,
Camden, Newark, or other similarly situated
cities and create giant enterprise zones;
subsidize and support.
The USA is a consumer based economy but
in order to function, consumers need money
to spend. Think about it...
if they make steel in China, textiles in Chile,
and cars in Mexico...we surely can make those
things here stateside and provide our own
citizens a stable path to middle class.
What?! domestic manufacturing can't compete
with low wages offshore. Well then, take Detroit,
Camden, Newark, or other similarly situated
cities and create giant enterprise zones;
subsidize and support.
The USA is a consumer based economy but
in order to function, consumers need money
to spend. Think about it...
4
Best as I read, the "further development of manufactured products" has stayed in the US.
What does Trump wants to bring back? Sewing the pieces of car seats?
What does Trump wants to bring back? Sewing the pieces of car seats?
We are not surrendering this process to other nations but other nation's robots rather than domestic robots. Either way, people earning a living from manufacturing is becoming a thing of the past.
Oddly, no one who has worked in manufacturing ever seems to write about this subject. Having been an industrial scientist most of my career I think some aspects of factories are not well appreciated. There is a value added step when you take raw materials and turn them into something real. This value added step generates real (not paper) incomes and it requires focused skilled workers who are working as a team. Just look at the competition to get Elon Musk's battery factory and you can understand the desirability of locating this in your community. Is that so hard to understand?
A well run factory management team will advocate for good local schools and infrastructure. They will also lobby and advocate for research funding for American Universities. Factories are historically the place where American basic science is turned into realities. Without home grown manufacturing we are rapidly losing the critical technology transfer skills. These are the skills that have created the modern lifestyle we enjoy today. Unless you have seen this in action you cannot begin to grasp the range of skills, innovation and yes artistry required to turn concepts and theories into products.
Our government needs to bench mark itself against the Japanese, Germans, Koreans and Chinese governments. Everyone feels it is about Americans earning too much, it is not. We are being out "governmented" on a global scale. From training to currency manipulation the advantage is now overseas.
A well run factory management team will advocate for good local schools and infrastructure. They will also lobby and advocate for research funding for American Universities. Factories are historically the place where American basic science is turned into realities. Without home grown manufacturing we are rapidly losing the critical technology transfer skills. These are the skills that have created the modern lifestyle we enjoy today. Unless you have seen this in action you cannot begin to grasp the range of skills, innovation and yes artistry required to turn concepts and theories into products.
Our government needs to bench mark itself against the Japanese, Germans, Koreans and Chinese governments. Everyone feels it is about Americans earning too much, it is not. We are being out "governmented" on a global scale. From training to currency manipulation the advantage is now overseas.
218
My daughter is a fairly new (2 years since graduation) mechanical engineer working as a quality engineer in manufacturing. Most of her fellow trainees are in student loan debt over their eyeballs, and several of them are working 12 hour days. I agree with your assessment.
2
I hope some of the processes of steel manufacturing will; be covered in Children of Steel, our proposed collection of short fiction by people who have lived, worked, and grown-up in industrial communities. In addition to the operational side of steel, there is a literature as yet to be written by people from these communities. My father worked for 40+ years at Inland Steel in East Chicago, Indiana. Our email list for Children of Steel has over 40 people who are in various current occupation from various steel manufacturing cities: Youngstown, OH, Pittsburgh, PA. East Chicago, IN, Gary, IN, etc. The best way to continue the conversation is to contact us at the new "Rust Belt Literature' group at the Modern Language Association's online Commons.
3
Thank you, it needed to be said but it should have been obvious. Our education is lacking in both scope and depth.
The article acts as if the destruction of manufacturing jobs thru automation was inevitable, but it was a cultural choice.
History records that a philosopher once showed Emperor Tiberius a machine that would revolutionize manufacturing. Tiberius objected that it would throw workers out of their jobs, and refused to buy it.
History records that a philosopher once showed Emperor Tiberius a machine that would revolutionize manufacturing. Tiberius objected that it would throw workers out of their jobs, and refused to buy it.
10
There is plenty of work for robots and people. We just need to pay people better wages.
1
And how'd that work out for the Roman Empire?
1
If I understand you, you are saying that we should never have adopted the use of internal combustion engine powered trucks to ship large quantities of materiel because of all the horse-drawn wagon driving jobs that were lost? Because of all of the blacksmith jobs that were lost?
It is a losing argument against technology and modernization. Adoption of new technology is indeed inevitable, if only because the very people who argue we shouldn't adopt new technology are all too eager to pay the lower prices such technology enables. Or perhaps more correctly, would complain about the high prices they would face in the absence of new technology. These price advantages benefit everyone.
Your 50-inch flat screen TV that you adore would cost many hundreds (thousands?) of dollars more (if it was available at all) if we had not adopted new technology. All of the computing technology that's driving automation is also the technology behind the internet which has been a huge boon to commerce and employment.
The jobs lost to automation are never coming back. Never. What we need to do is figure out how to help the people who in previous generations would have had good-paying manufacturing jobs find other work that allows them to support a family and live a decent life.
With each passing year, it also becomes more and more true that being poorly educated is a crippling handicap in the workforce. While not a guarantee of success, it is really important to get a good education.
It is a losing argument against technology and modernization. Adoption of new technology is indeed inevitable, if only because the very people who argue we shouldn't adopt new technology are all too eager to pay the lower prices such technology enables. Or perhaps more correctly, would complain about the high prices they would face in the absence of new technology. These price advantages benefit everyone.
Your 50-inch flat screen TV that you adore would cost many hundreds (thousands?) of dollars more (if it was available at all) if we had not adopted new technology. All of the computing technology that's driving automation is also the technology behind the internet which has been a huge boon to commerce and employment.
The jobs lost to automation are never coming back. Never. What we need to do is figure out how to help the people who in previous generations would have had good-paying manufacturing jobs find other work that allows them to support a family and live a decent life.
With each passing year, it also becomes more and more true that being poorly educated is a crippling handicap in the workforce. While not a guarantee of success, it is really important to get a good education.
1
If trump and people of his ilk bought US steel over Chinese steel the jobs would never have left.
8
Brilliant reporter Binyamin "Binya" Appelbaum might tell us about David Ricardo's essay On Value. On Rent. Or review the work of U of Chicago's incredible Professor Lloyd Appleton Metzler on trade, balance of payments and Keynesian theory - before we wax on jobs that manufacture and do not add value. Felix George Rohatyn spoke of taking in each other's laundry. Metler taught the trade war between Spain and Ye Olde England, sherry from grapes, barrels and staves and shipping. Of course, England won, Spain lost, and war followed. The jobs that do the laundry do not add value that sticks, do not reverse the balance of payments... and do not create pride in the worker.
Reporters: those to can do, those who cannot, report? Or teach?
It's time for The New York Times to free itself from the past and turn on the lights. Our nation's best should review fact. We are sinking in our enabling.
It's time for a hair shirt.. ask St. Francis... and talk to the birds, whisper to the cattle, feed only grass, and move on.
Binya might seek out Bob Weintraub's view of the FED. He copped from the master... at Chicago...
Reporters: those to can do, those who cannot, report? Or teach?
It's time for The New York Times to free itself from the past and turn on the lights. Our nation's best should review fact. We are sinking in our enabling.
It's time for a hair shirt.. ask St. Francis... and talk to the birds, whisper to the cattle, feed only grass, and move on.
Binya might seek out Bob Weintraub's view of the FED. He copped from the master... at Chicago...
2
On Money, On credit, on debt... on extended markets...
Binya, we must add value...
Doing your neighbors laundry adds no value...
Binya, we must add value...
Doing your neighbors laundry adds no value...
10
The reason politicians are so interested in manufacturing is purely political. In order, the states with the largest percentages of manufacturing employment are Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa , Michigan, Alabama Arkansas and Ohio all states with a large number of electoral votes. However, manufacturing has declined to only 8.8% of workers and 12.5% of US GDP. Regardless of what Donald or Hillary tell you, most of those jobs won't be coming back.
36
I am sorry to be so chatty in these comments but since I believe that it is better to speak than merely be "spoken-of" I will try to answer. First, politicians are almost by definition not "interested in" people who live in industrial communities and work there. That is a given. The political class, by and large, has no family members working in these industries and maybe never did. It is simply a block to be rhetorically persuaded.
Aristotle, whom we study in grad school, taught that the orator needs to use proper enthymemes to move each segment of the audiences. The abstraction called votes is most of what interests a politician for any grouping. Sometimes it makes sense to play "look over there" rhetorically as this essay does in its invidious comparison of industrial workers to health service workers.
It may be that only a fraction of those who have lived in industrial communities care enough about ourselves, our families, and our towns to try to make some small place for them in the culture of this country. It is far better to speak than merely be spoken-of. My Ph.d. dissertation was about four immigrant women writers in Chicago and that was the title: From Spoken-of to Speakers.
Aristotle, whom we study in grad school, taught that the orator needs to use proper enthymemes to move each segment of the audiences. The abstraction called votes is most of what interests a politician for any grouping. Sometimes it makes sense to play "look over there" rhetorically as this essay does in its invidious comparison of industrial workers to health service workers.
It may be that only a fraction of those who have lived in industrial communities care enough about ourselves, our families, and our towns to try to make some small place for them in the culture of this country. It is far better to speak than merely be spoken-of. My Ph.d. dissertation was about four immigrant women writers in Chicago and that was the title: From Spoken-of to Speakers.
1
The answer to that question is simple. Most service jobs are low paying, non-union gigs with no benefits. "Manufacturing" jobs were the ones that paid a living wage. The people who work in factories are still just providing a "service" to the company they work for, they are is just getting paid well for it. So candidates are obsessed with imaginary manufacturing jobs because making real service jobs pay better means real employers have to pay those workers more. That is not good politics.
137
When people are treated as a commodity rather than a resource to be husbanded and used properly, this is what you get--ill-paid, ill-educated, and just plain sick people who are susceptible to politicians' lies.
3
And it was unions who ensured those manufacturing job of the past paid well. It wasn't out of the goodness of the owners' heart.
> "Most service jobs are low paying, non-union gigs with no benefits"
This is a massive over-simplification
FIRST, there are 2 basic kinds of 'service-jobs'
. . . those that can be off-shored, and those that can't
You CAN off-shore a Call-Center-CSR, but you can't off-shore a Fast-Food worker
SECOND, the low-paying service-jobs, are low-skill, that ANYONE can do, therefore competition drives the wages to the lowest level possible
While there ARE Service-Jobs that are high-skill, high-pay. Doctors, Lawyers, Financial-Analysts don't make, or manufacture anything
* * *
The American Dream many are crying about here is the disappearance of jobs that required little skill/knowledge, little commitment other than showing up for work on time, but still paid very well
THAT, worked for a while, mostly for white males in America just after WWII when the US was about the only industrialized country in the world that hadn't been destroyed during the 1940s
Almost all Big Businesses were loyal US Companies that operated with little or no competition
That model began to crash-&-burn, when those pesky Japanese started selling cars at massively lower prices than US-Automakers
At that time, most of the countries where most manufacturing is taking place now, were still operating just slightly beyond Iron-Age/Pre-Industrial-Revolution technologies
Now that all peoples around the globe get to share modernity, rather than just the tiny sliver of White-American-Males, the pie is sliced differently
This is a massive over-simplification
FIRST, there are 2 basic kinds of 'service-jobs'
. . . those that can be off-shored, and those that can't
You CAN off-shore a Call-Center-CSR, but you can't off-shore a Fast-Food worker
SECOND, the low-paying service-jobs, are low-skill, that ANYONE can do, therefore competition drives the wages to the lowest level possible
While there ARE Service-Jobs that are high-skill, high-pay. Doctors, Lawyers, Financial-Analysts don't make, or manufacture anything
* * *
The American Dream many are crying about here is the disappearance of jobs that required little skill/knowledge, little commitment other than showing up for work on time, but still paid very well
THAT, worked for a while, mostly for white males in America just after WWII when the US was about the only industrialized country in the world that hadn't been destroyed during the 1940s
Almost all Big Businesses were loyal US Companies that operated with little or no competition
That model began to crash-&-burn, when those pesky Japanese started selling cars at massively lower prices than US-Automakers
At that time, most of the countries where most manufacturing is taking place now, were still operating just slightly beyond Iron-Age/Pre-Industrial-Revolution technologies
Now that all peoples around the globe get to share modernity, rather than just the tiny sliver of White-American-Males, the pie is sliced differently
Industry produces wealth. It takes the raw materials available to us and transforms them into usable products. Some service professions also produce wealth, in a way, but many do not. Many are centered largely around the allocation of disposable income. The hairdresser and hotel clerk aren't creating wealth, they're simply participating in the sloshing around of wealth that already exists...which, in the era of trade deficits, its a diminishing quantity.
But further than that, manufacturing jobs enabled a specific lifestlye: to leave highschool upon reaching adulthood, enter the workforce without substantial extra uncompensated training, marry, raise a family, and own a home. All before you hit 30. Service sector jobs that require four or six years of college plus another stint at "entry-level" wages simply cannot offer the same. Today's 28 or 30 year old is too often in the same place his father or grandfather was at 20 or 22